Couple of transportation questions

DK re your #2, but the train station on the island of Venice is Venezia Santa Lucia. Venezia Mestre is on the mainland (and they really need to just call it Mestre to avoid endless confusion on the part of travelers there). So assuming you're staying on the island, you want to do a train from VSL to Riomaggiore. To truly see your options, use the trenitalia.com website. You'll be taking at least one local (Regionale) train and those schedules aren't published more than a week ahead of time. The work-around is that you'll need to figure out the day of the week you'll be traveling and enter the next occurrence of that date. (So if it's a Wednesday, enter 16 April.) Be sure to set your start time at 8 or so, since it sometimes defaults to the local time where you're sitting.

That will show you that the fastest you can get from Venice to Riomaggiore is indeed 5 1/2 hrs, with the fewest train changes being through Florence (Firenze SMN) and La Spezia Centrale.

Parking around Siena isn't that easy. You'd have to park quite a distance from the historical center of town and then head out for a long walk (both directions remember!). I'd recommend getting a car in Siena (it's a big city, they must have a car rental place) for another reason: you don't really want to be driving in/around Florence. It makes New Jersey traffic seem calm! Orvieto is a great place to visit. There is plenty of parking at the bottom of the hill and then funicular then bus to the top. But I don't remember seeing baggage storage at the train station - maybe someone else can help with that. The train to Rome is fairly frequent and very quick.

About trains - which are wonderful in Italy. Use this site: trenitalia.it and you'll find not only schedules but some great discounts, if you are willing to plan your trip in advance. I'm in Italy every summer for nearly 2 months - I have made buying train tickets in advance a fun part of planning. I know where I want to go and when I want to get there and like saving money for more gelato!

I was in Siena recently with friends who had a rental car and we stayed at Hotel Minerva on Via Garibaldi, next to one of the city walls. Garage parking on premises for a reasonable cost per day. Walk to the Campo was less than 15 minutes.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

@Michael, we'll be staying in Mestre instead of the mainland (mainland was just too expensive). But thanks for the tip of searching by the same day we'll be travelling. I just did, and it's a little more expensive than I thought, so good to know.

@Robert, we're going to be there in the beginning of May, so not sure that we can do much in the way of discounts... it's probably too late for that now, right? Do you recommend booking online now, or just wait until the day itself? (I assume the former is easier/less stressful, but just want to make sure)

@Zoe, we've already booked an AirBnB in what seems to be more or less the center of the city (near the Campo), so given Robert's advice above, I think I'll try to find a rental agency in the city. I don't drive much at home (at most once every 2 months or so - cars just aren't needed in Tokyo) so I'm trying to find the easiest solution :)

Well, it looks like a pickup from Siena and dropoff at Orvieto is not possible, probably because the pickup date falls on a Sunday. However, it appears that a pickup on Saturday from Florence (and a dropoff at Orvieto) is doable, so I'll end up doing that after all. I should have checked the availability first before bothering you all :(

I do have another question about the train though, specifically, the viability of a rail pass. We'll be going from Venice to Cinque Terre, from CT to Florence (where we get a car for a couple of days, ending at Orvieto), and Orvieto to Rome. From what I can tell on the trenitalia site, the (approximate) costs for 2 people would be:

• Venice to Cinque Terre = 117 Euro
• CT to Florence (car pickup at Florence to Orvieto) = 35-28 Euro
• Orvieto to Rome = 20 Euro

So the total would come to about 180 euros for the both of us (minus any local travel within Venice/Rome/CT). Given that, it's not really worth getting a rail pass right?

You are right about the railpass, just buy point-to-point tickets.

Michael: all major Italian cities with multiple stations adopt the practice of naming them city + (station). Since Mestre is just another district of Venezia, where the majority of its population actually lives, the name Venezia Mestre is totally appropriate.

Firenze, Torino and Genova are examples of other big Italian cities without a distinctive suffix (like "Centrale") to any of its stations.