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From Cinque Terre to Siena to Florence

Posted by (Washington State) on

I am trying to nail down our transportation. We leave Cinque Terre on Saturday, June 4th for Siena. I don't know if it is best to take the train to Firenze then bus to Siena or if there is a better option direct to Siena? How hard is it to find the bus station when we arrive in Firenze on the train? At which station do we want to get off? Looks like we would want to take the faster Rapida bus, is it easy to figure out which are Rapida?

On Tuesday, June 7th we depart from Siena to Florence I am assuming the bus is best, we are staying about 20 minutes walk from the Santa Maria Novella train station according to our Firenze BnB website. The BnB in Firenze would like to have an idea when we will be arriving (we check out of Siena at 10:30) What would be a somewhat realistic time frame to give them?

Thanks!!

Posted by
1544 posts

Maybe you can marginally travel faster by getting out of the train at Empoli and switching there to a train to Siena. You will arrive at the train station at Siena that is down the hill, but you could save some time not going all the way to Florence. Check the railway timetable are I am not sure the time you save is substantial.

A realistic time for arriving in Florence would be 1pm. You do not say where the BnB is; if it is in the Oltrarno, it could be a shorter walk if you get out of the bus at Porta Romana.

Posted by
7175 posts

IC 651
Dep 09:03 MONTEROSSO (Italy)
Arr 10:17 PISA CENTRALE (Italy)

RE 3114
Dep 10:32 PISA CENTRALE (Italy)
Arr 11:03 EMPOLI (Italy)

RE 11745
Dep 11:40 EMPOLI (Italy)
Arr 12:38 SIENA (Italy)

Posted by
14 posts

Thanks so much for the replies. I have several more questions for the sake of clarity and my sanity. It appears that I pay for the trip (which includes all three trains) at the terminal in Monterosso. Since I am taking three different trains, will I have a ticket for each train or just one ticket? I know that I am suppose to get my ticket "punched" before getting on the regional trains. Since my first train is Intercity (if I only have one ticket for the entire trip)do I get it punched before getting on that first Intercity train? I assume this wouldn't be too hard to figure out when I get there, but I sure don't want to risk fines.

Posted by
32228 posts

michelle,

You'll most likely receive three different tickets (printed on card stock) when you buy tickets in Monterosso. If you use the solution shown in the previous reply, you don't have to validate the ticket as it's an InterCity train, which has compulsory seat reservatons.

You will have to validate ("punch") the tickets for the latter two segments which are on Regionale trains, prior to boarding the trains on the day of travel. You may find it helpful to have a look at THIS short video. Be sure to check the ticket after validating to ensure the machine has printed the time and date on it.

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