car travel Cinque Terre to Venice

A train from La Spezia to Venezia Santa Lucia will take 5.5hrs - 6.6hrs depending on the time you leave. A couple of the runs have Eurostars for a part of the journey which are very fast and don't make a lot of stops. 2nd class fare for four adults would be 126 Euro. If there are children under 12, it's 31.50E for adults and 15.80E for children under 12. For driving, I'm not sure that you can rent a car in the CT as no tourist cars are usually permitted in the five towns. I know that you can rent cars in La Spezia and in towns north of the CT. I've never driven a car in Italy so I'll defer on driving to others.

We drove it in about 5 hours. But that was a Sunday afternoon and the last hour was sitting on the Autostrada inching our way up to the toll booth at Mestre. We dropped the car at the airport and took a water taxi to the hotel.

Thanks to both of you for your replys. If I read you both correctly it takes about the same amount of time train or car. Is the drive beautiful - is the train ride scenic? I'll need to compare the train price aganist the car for only one day.

Larry, how do you know the exact cost? Can you give me hint at how easily you came up with that?

Linda, I obtained the costs off of the www.trenitalia.com site for a journey to Venezia Santa Lucia from La Spezia Centrale. Our "R" (local) went from La Spezia to Bologna. The Eurostar went from Bologna to Venezia Santa Lucia. The ES really moves and the trip was relaxing and scenic. Driving would certainly give you the opportunity to pull off and see a few more scenic towns. We were 1st class and our total cost was 92.80E (I'm looking at our tickets)

The end of Sept. we took the 7:35am from Monterossa to Bologna and was suppose to catch the Eurostar (we had reserved 2nd class tickets) to Venice from Bologna. All would have been fine if the engine of the first train didn't break down. A 5 1/2 hour train ride with one train changed turned into about a 8 hour ride on about 4 or 5 local trains. It was an interesting experience. I guess someone else was lucky enough to sit in our 2nd class Euro Star seats. There were a group of us trying to make the same train connections that morning and one had paid for 1 st class on the Eurostar. I hear driving can be crazy, so I guess I am glad we took the train anyway.

Linda- My husband and I drove last year all through Italy. While the driving was fine thru the countryside the cities were brutal. We did Italy from top to bottom and are planning on going again in 2009 but we will be taking the train as it is much more relaxing. If you do rent a car even for a day you will need an international drivers license. Please check with your AAA before you go.
Shelley

Take the train and use the time to rest, etc., and save the sight seeing and hiking time and energy for the CT, especially Vernazza. Also less stress than driving there, especially the roads in the mountains of the CT. You're looking at about 270 miles on hilly roads and about four+ hours by car. Long way for a family of four in those little cars. Also keep in mind the hidden rental car costs of the collision damage insurance and the high of gas prices compared to using a day on a rail pass and you come out better on the train.

Gosh, thanks everyone. I think we may go with the train and do a one night stop in Parma, Bologna, or one of those Emiliga-Romana towns. If any of you have ideas on that let me know! If we do a one nighter it will be the only one night we do on our entire trip. We will spend 3 nights or more in all of our other destinations
Thanks again!
Linda

Linda, my wife and I rented a car for three weeks. We drove the drive you are talking about and believe me there is no such thing as a relaxing drive on the Italian Autostrada. They drive fast 90 to 100 plus, they are rude and there is a lot of truck traffic. If you drove in Italy a lot that would be different, but for one day you would arrive very stressed. As a passenger my wife was terrified. The secondary roads are not bad and you see a lot more, but on the Aoutostrada you are to busy staying out of the way of other cars to see much. The Autostrada is well maintained and there are lots of rest areas. Take the train for a relaxing trip.

Linda,

The drive is very nice. We stayed off the autostrada until Verona. We wound around through the mountains and it was gorgeous. The small villages are all unique and fun to see.

The train may be more relaxing - but all you see is the blur. If you want to really see and feel where you are, drive it. There are no large cities to navigate therefore those issues are null. We did have one roundabout out in the country that we had to go round and round until I could find one of the towns on the map (it was in SWITZERLAND). We then knew which of the 5 choices we wanted.