Cinque Terre 1 full day or 2 full days?

For the information on the Cinque Terre National Park trails you can check below: http://www.parconazionale5terre.it/sentieri_parco.asp?id_lingue=1 The sentiero azzurro (blue trail), the number 2 in the list, is currently closed and I doubt it will be open in March. Besides, even if it was open, March weather is unpredictable and if it rains you can't go anyway. If I were in your shoes, I would definitely decrease the 5T stay and increase Paris. Right now you only have 2 full days in Paris, even adding your partial day of arrival (when you'll be tired from the flight and jet lagged), it's not really much at all for Paris. Even adding a day to Paris, it's not really a lot of time for such a big city. My suggestion is to rent a bicycle in Paris, if you can. I remember when I did, I was able to cover a lot of ground in a much shorter time than when I relied on walking and metro. I usually rented from Paris Velo'. I don't know if it still exists because it's been a few years, but check it out. I'm sure there are plenty of bike rental places. After I tried, I would not do Paris any other way. I wish I had done it since the first time I went. Paris is mostly flat. The only places on a hill, which require some good legs, is the area of the Sacre Coeur, Montmatre and Place Pigalle. Just leave that area for when you don't have a bike if you don't feel up to it. You can do Pisa either on arrival from Paris or one the way from the 5T to Florence. If you rent a car on your arrival at Pisa, you should do it right away. If relying on trains, it doesn't matter. You have to go through it either way. By car, you don't need to pass through Pisa from 5T to Florence, as you can cut through the "Bretella" from Viareggio to Lucca). From the Pisa station to the leaning tower is a long walk (or a bus ride). You can see everything in Pisa in no more than 2 hours.

Thanks for the tip! I think I'll cut 5T down to 1 full day in that case and give a day back to Paris. As far as bike rentals, that sounds really interesting. My concern with that would be bike theft though - are there a lot of places to easily lock bikes up and will the bike rental places typically provide bike locks? I wouldn't want to leave our bikes outside of a church (or anywhere) we'd want to see the insides of and come back out to find them missing. I've also thought about car but I'm somewhat apprehensive about getting into an accident. I've never felt too comfortable about renting cars in most places I go, especially internationally. LOL we rented a car when I was in French Polynesia and I almost wrecked it when I released the handbrake and forgot to apply the brakes (manual trans) and it started rolling towards the edge of a 5ft drop off at the end of a parking lot we were in. So we'll probably be sticking with trains and buses mostly :) BTW: kind of a slightly off-topic question but what would you say the best credit card would be for purchasing international airline tix (i.e. EasyJet)? I'm probably gonna buy an EasyJet ticket from Paris->Pisa soon. Of course, the only cards they'll take are Visa, Visa Debit, Mastercard, and Mastercard debit haha. I have a Chase Freedom Ultimate Rewards Mastercard that's offering 5% CB on direct airline ticket purchases so this would likely count. Not sure about the whole travel insurance thing though - EasyJet offers "travel insurance" but they say it only applies to citizens of the country of departure (i.e. if the flight is leaving from France, travel insurance is only applicable to French citizens). Yet the odd thing is that you can purchase the insurance regardless!

Jeremy, Your proposed Itinerary actually looks quite reasonable, although I agree that the time in Paris is a bit short (unless you've been there before). Although mid-March is just before the "official" start of the season, I'd leave the Cinque Terre visit "as is". Many of the hotels and other tourist businesses will be starting to open by then, and one benefit is that you probably won't have to fight huge crowds, which will be the case later in the year. All of the Sentiero Azzurro trails are currently closed, but it's expected that at least some of them will be re-opening again next spring. One thing that's important to note is that there's a large number of other trails in that area as well, so if you want to take a few hikes you should be able to do that. Finally, even without hiking you can explore the five towns using the local trains. I wouldn't bother with the Leaning Tower, although if it's important to you it would be good to see it while you're there. You'd have to store your luggage while visiting the Tower, and then collect it before continuing to the Cinque Terre. You didn't mention this in your Itinerary, but I'd suggest travel from Florence to Siena also by Bus. The Bus depot is close to Firenze SMN station, and passengers disembark in the center of Siena rather than at the bottom of the hill where the rail station is located. Hsppy travels!

Thanks Ken! So you think 2 days in 5T is best? I do think an extra day back to Paris might be good - would it be best to do that and take a day away from Florence/Siena instead then? That way we'd have 3 full days in Paris, 2 full days in 5T, and 2 full days in Florence...

Jeremy, I'd suggest staying two days in the Cinque Terre, but as Roberto mentioned the weather could be an issue. I've found that even in September, the weather can be inclement but the rain doesn't usually last too long. Packing some light rain gear and items for "layering" are prudent regardless of what time of year one is travelling. It would be nice to have at least one more day in Paris, but it's a tough call on which other place to reduce by one day. Cheers!

It's up to you, but if It was my trip, in March, I'd stay in CT only two nights (1 full day). March is the second raniest month after Nov. it can be cold, and days are short because daylight savings kicks in on the last Sunday of March. In Summer it would be a different story. I vote for an extra day in Paris.
"Paris vaut bien une messe."

Thanks Ken and Roberto! I'm strongly considering moving 5T back to 1 full day and giving a day back to Paris. Funny thing is, both my wife and I have been to Europe (separately). I studied in Siena for a few months about 10 years back but I hardly remember a thing. My wife was there in HS for a band performance but says she took the trip for granted and barely remembers a thing. So this should be a nice refresher for the both of us. It's been so long that I've traveled that I have a really poor gauge of where to go and for how long. So thanks for the tips!

Only personal opinion, but I would so drop Pisa and give Paris an extra day. As noted weather at that time of year can still be rainy cool, and Paris has tons of indoor sites.. plus for me, Pisa was a real downer,, a one shot deal. I use Visa to purchase my tickets for Easyjet and Vueling, had more trouble with Vueling but eventually managed , twice to use my cc with them. Make sure which ever card you use that you phone your CC company number on back of card and let them know you will be using it for a foriegn transaction, many have security in place that will block that unless you tell them, and on many train and plane ticket sites once you attempt to use a card, and its blocked and so refused by the site, it will not allow you to retry for 24 hours.

I'll probably end up purchasing tix to Pisa using my Mastercard. Ugh, it seems like the Easyjet prices keep going up. Do they do dynamic pricing or something? I've tracked at least three different prices in the past week or so. Or do you guys tend to notice Easyjet prices climbing week after week as the date of travel gets closer? I'm wondering if I should wait until next week on Tues or Wed to see if the prices again but I'm not sure if that "rule" applies for inter-European flights/airlines. Looks like Ryanair has cheaper fares but flying out of Paris Beauvais, which looks like it's far from Paris. Additionally, the earliest Ryanair flight leaves at around 7pm arriving to Pisa at 8pm. So factoring in the train to Monterosso from Pisa, we'd get into 5T a bit late. Seems like a lot of trouble to save money, especially if we have to arrive so late. Unless you guys think it might be an interesting trip just to head up to Beauvais earlier on this day and make a day trip out of it before flying out of there down to Pisa..? As far as Pisa, I was hoping to make it a relatively quick trip as my wife just wants to see the Leaning Tower. We're totally up to just walking over to the Leaning Tower, taking some pics and walking around, then heading back to the train station or airport (it looks like both are about 20-30 minutes away on foot). So we'd probably just spend a couple hours there at most and be fine.

Budget airlines start low and as time passes and the plane fills up the prices rise consistently so that tickets "on the day" can be very expensive. In my experience when they start up, they never come down. Often different flights on the same day from the same budget airline will have quite different fares.

Many budget airlines use a "sliding scale", which means the prices "slide up" as the flight fills. Therefore it's an advantage to book as early as possible. The longer you wait to book, the greater the cost. Since a budget flight is the best option, you'll have to pay whatever the fares are at the time you book. I wouldn't use RyanAir as it will take both time and money to get to Beauvais. Cheers!

Thanks for the tips, guys. I bit the bullet and booked the flight from ORY->PSA on 3/15, figuring I should spend the extra day in Paris. I'm pretty upset that the price jumped up another $20~ from a couple days ago, but what can you do? Seems like the prices on this flight/date have jumped up amazingly fast in the past week or so...

Prices on train tickets and budget airlines always go up, I have never seen them go down, soon as you have dates nailed down buy buy buy. Glad you didn't use Beauvais, it is far from Paris and there is no direct train there , you bus and train and it take about 1.5 hours at best, yuck.

Fortunately, I think that plane ticket was the only other major one to take care of. From here on out, it's just figuring out getting from town-to-town by bus and/or train. I was strongly considering taking the bus to Rome from Siena and checked the sena.it website. Apparently, there's only one bus leaving from Siena and it leaves at 12:45 and arrives in Rome at 16:45. I read around that there are more departures (by bus) than this though. Is there really only one bus that heads from Siena to Rome per day? I'm debating whether or not to do 2 days in Florence then head over to Siena for a 'day trip,' and then spend the night there so I could just catch the bus the next day. This versus doing something like Florence - Siena - Florence, then catching the train to Rome from Florence (It doesn't look like there are any buses out of Florence to Rome)

Did you go to the Baltour website?
http://www.baltour.it/ I saw they have one bus every 2 hours starting at 6:00am from Siena (6;00am, 8:00am, 10:00am etc.) to Rome. The trip is approximately 3 hours long. I checked for January, because March is too far ahead and the site doesn't give you info or book for March. If you go back to Florence, it doesn't make any sense to take a bus from Florence. There are buses (fewer than from Siena due to the train competition), however if you are in Florence you might as well take a Frecciarossa train and be in Rome in 90 min. It might be a little more expensive. But, if you want a bus, there are buses also from Florence (check the same baltour website).

Aha! I was putting in March as the date this whole time, not realizing that it's because that date is too far in advance! :P Now it all seems clearer :) I've heard that the bus s you off in a more convenient location vs the train - is this true? Seems like it would take about 3 hours, shortest, either by bus or train. But perhaps train is a little more comfortable to ride on? If we go by bus, we'll likely end up taking a later bus from Siena to Rome so we can soak in Siena a little more.

You have two choices: 1. SIENA-ROMA via Bus. You can pick up the bus on top of the hill on Piazza Gramsci. You will be in Rome at the Tiburtina station after about 3 hours. 2. SIENA-FIRENZE via bus (with Sita Bus company) then FLORENCE-ROMA via train. Siena-Firenze can be covered also by train, but as you mentioned the train station in Siena is at the bottom of the hill, therefore you need to take a bus or taxi to it, because it's not walking distance from the historical city center (Siena is on top of a hill). You can pick up the bus to Florence on the same Piazza Gramsci. You will be in Florence at the Sita bus station on Via s.Caterina da Siena approximately 70 min. later.
From there you can walk to the station, located around the corner from the bus station (maybe 500 ft) and get on a fast train (Freccia) to Rome. The train ride is 90 min. Trains to Rome are very frequent (2 to 3 per hour, on average). Trains are generally more comfortable to ride than buses, you can walk around and seats are much wider and more comfortable. However considering you are in Siena, it makes sense to go straight to Rome without backtracking to Florence and having to change modes of transportation from bus to train with all the luggage and stuff. Also those buses are luxury buses, not old Greyhound buses. Option 1 is probably considerably cheaper and, unless you have a train available immediately after your arrival to Florence, option 1 is probably faster as well. I'd go with option 1.