We have about 4.5 days at the end of a Tuscany trip and would like to see Cinque Terre, Milan and Lake Como. Any advice on how to split up our time and how best to get from one place to another? Can fly out of Milan. Would prefer the bulk of our time to be between Cinque Terre and Lake Como. Thank you!
Posted by
California 🦋
5210 posts
Where in Tuscany will your trip end?
If you're near Florence at the end of your trip, you may take a train to the village of your choice in Cinque Terre but this will take anywhere from 2.5 to 3 hours with 1-2 train changes depending on what time you leave Florence.
Check train schedules here: http://www.trenitalia.com
I'd recommend staying in Monterosso (CT) as this is the best option in terms of taking the most direct train to Milan.
The trip from Monterosso to Milano Centrale (Milan's Central Station) will take around 3 hours if you take the Intercity train, or it could take as long as 4- 4.5 hours with 1-2 train changes.
If you want to go to Varenna on Lake Como, you will need to take a Regionale train from Milano Centrale to Varenna & this will take about 1 Hr. 5 minutes.
So... your dilemma is to try to figure out if it's worth traveling such long hours from one place to the next.
Both CT & Varenna are very beautiful places, so you can't go wrong going to one or the other.
Have a wonderful trip!
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
Or, if you're driving in Tuscany and can drop a car nearly anywhere, then La Spezia is the most convenient point to ditch it before hopping a local train to your Cinque Terre destination (15-25 minutes to Monterosso).
Posted by
OP
7 posts
Thank you so much for your input. I think I have decided to save ourselves too much traveling in too short a time and decided to go from Florence to Lake Como and spend our time there with the hopes of getting to Milan to be able to see The Last Supper and the Duomo. Any advice on timing for that one? We will be leaving Tuscany on June 28th and driving back to Florence and we can either stay in Florence for a day or go directly to Lake Como. We have been to Florence before and loved it, but also want to have enough time up north as we have not been there before. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!! Thanks!
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
If you want to see the Last Supper, nail down the reservation as soon as possible. Reports here indicate that it can sell out early. Here's the official website (I remember reports that it works better to call than to buy online, but I don't know if that's still true): http://www.vivaticket.it/?op=cenacoloVinciano