Getting From Cinque Terre to Montepulciano

How long does it take to get from CT to Siena by train?

Laura,
You may want to consider training to Chiusi to pick up the car. Training to Pisa airport to pick up the car may help you avoid the ZTL in Pisa. I don't think you can get to Siena from cinque terre by train in 2.5 hours.

James, I don't see it. What town in Cinque terre did you depart from.

Big surprise. There are very few Eurstar trains making the run from any town in the CT to Siena. The runs are mostly all Regionale train runs. The journey takes 4.2 hours. You will not be on any ES train out of the CT and you will no be on any ES train to Empoli or to Siena. I do see one EScity segment that runs from La Spezia to Pisa and that shortens the journey to 3hrs46min. A few minutes can be gained by routing via Florence but its still almost always on Regionale trains.

CLICK HERE to see a typical morning schedule.

I would suggest that renting a car in La Spezia is just fine. As I recall, the car rental place is not near the train station and you may have to take a taxi to the location. Then, you can drive to Pisa and see the leaning tower if you wish. Just watch out for the restricted driving zones in Pisa (ZTLs). A GPS or good map can get you to Montepulciano just fine. You might take a look at ViaMichelin or Google to get driving directions. CLICK HERE for the ViaMichelin website.

I realize that you change trains in La Spezia. Been there done that. Please provide a link that shows a Eurostar train going to Siena via either Empoli, Sarzana or Florence which you must go through to get to Siena on the train. I've never seen it on the Trenitalia website. No Eurostar train arrives in Siena from any direction. There is the occasional ES train out of La Spezia that goes to Rome but you will tranfer off at Pisa.

I do see the ES on DB Bahn departing at 06:51. I see it on Trenitalia as well but you have to put in La Spezia Centrale as the origination point to see it on either site. If you put in a CT town as the origination point, it won't show on either site.

Regardless, its there. If you are going to Siena, you will only be on this ES train to Pisa where you will change to a Regionale train. Still, you save well over an hour on travel time with this high-speed train.

To catch this train from a CT town, there are only two trains running early enough to make it to La Spezia in time. The first train departs Monterosso at 04:56 arriving at La Spezia at 05:22. The second train departs Monterosso at 06:20 and arrives at La Spezia at 06:44. That gives you 6 minutes to change trains which is doable unless the second train is running late. The CT Regionale trains can often be a minute or two off. Use discretion on this second run.

Thanks to everyone for your advice.

I haven't done this before, so I might be wrong, but it sounds like it might be quicker to drive from La Spezia than to take the trains??? Which option would help me to avoid the ZTL zones the most? And, do you guys know of a map or list of places with ZTL zones so I will know how to avoid those? Can you end up in one without knowing it (i.e., are there warning signs, etc.)?

I looked at all of the websites you guys recommended. Is the Bahn.de the company with the faster trains? Forgive me, but I am still trying to figure this train thing out. :-)

One other idea I had was to drive from La Spezia to Montepulciano, but to stop and visit San Gimignano for a couple of hours along the way. I have looked at this option on Google maps--looks like it would obviously involve smaller roads and take at least another hour (drive-time). Is this a bad idea? Pros/cons? Other ideas?

Hi Laura, I still like your idea of renting a car and driving to Montepulciano. Yes you can see San G. and, you can see Siena as well if you get an early morning start.

To answer your question above, www.bahn.de is the official website for the Germain rail system. They do have a superb website in that they are linked in to many other national train websites and you can really see train journeys for a good deal of Europe. Trenitalia is the offical website for the Italian train system. Neither site has anything to do with the speed of the trains. Just keep asking questions. You're doing well thus far.

For your question on the ZTL in Pisa, the ZTL in Pisa is complicated beyond belief with streets switching in and out on different days of the week. I advise you not to drive inside the city but to park outside and use public transport. CLICK HERE to see the ZTL map. It looks like the whole center of the city is restricted. I can't see any streets that take you through the zones.

For the ZTL zones, each is marked with a sign (in Italian) and a nice set of cameras to snap pictures of your license plate. CLICK HERE to see an article, with pictures of the signs and cameras, of the entrance to a ZTL zone.

Lots of discussions on trains and schedules boggle my mind. Laura, all I can tell you is that in June we rented a car in La Spezia from the states via the internet. We went with Hertz as it gave us the best rate. Very easy to come out of the La Spezia train and find a taxi. Signs point you the way and the taxis will be waiting. It will cost you about $10E to go down by the port to where the rental car places are. From Hertz it was super easy to get on the autostrada. We happened to go south on the A12 (aka Aurelia) and stopped in Volterra before going further south. We had looked at going to San G and Siena and it seemed quite easy to do. I suggest bringing your own GPS and programming it before you leave the states. I also suggest printing out google or mapquest hard copies of the towns you are going into as they will give you the names of the roads that wind around the main town area. Sometimes it isn't so easy to find parking and it can be confusing and nervewracking to make sure you are heading in the right direction when you are close to the towns. I only say this because you are thinking of stopping in San G or Siena before Montepulciano. Initially, I was quite ambitious and thought I could hit about 3 towns a day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon is all that is feasible. They are all similar in characteristics and feel so it is best not to town-hop. You truly will have a more quality trip.

To summarize my last comments. I would be more tempted to drive from La Spezia to Montepulciano with maybe a morning stop in San G. The smaller "back roads" truly are slow but very scenic. Sometimes the speed limit is down to about 40 mph and the roads twist and wind. Of course, the Italians will zoom and pass you, but we didn't want to risk an accident or tickets so we stayed in the posted speed limit and all went great.

Thanks so much, Larry and Kay for your great tips and advice!

We still like the idea of renting a car--probably in La Spezia--and driving to Montepulciano too.

Kay--did you think the backroads were worth it? I'm torn as to whether to go that route (and maybe see San G. or a different hill town on the way), or going with the quicker route recommended by Google and Michelin. Does anyone else have thoughts on that?

Laura, I agree with the last two posters. You find a lot of character and small villages on the back roads, but you will save a lot of time on the autostradas. We stayed in Montepulciano and visited San G., also. You will get plenty of rural driving just getting between freeways and small towns.

Also, I would throw in that as much as we loved Montepulciano, we wished we would have given a little more time to San Gimignano. Even though it's more crowded, the towers and size give it a different feel from Montepulciano. Siena would be good for a separate day, if you have time for it.

Laura, In oct of last year we took the same trip. We rented at the agaency on San Bartelemeo with good sucess. It was a little hard to find our way out of town, because the power cord to the GPS stopped working and I did not want to try and find my way back to the agency. IMO, I would take the auto strada to your destination in montepulciano, and the take the back roads as you day trip from there. You will be tired and the roads are only fun when you want to be sightseing. There are some wonderful drives around MP, we spent 6 nights there, and nevr went to the same towns twice. In fact, we want to return to continue. If I might ask, where are you going to stay? Jeff

The autostrada will definitely get you to places quicker than the back roads. Are the back roads worth driving for the scenery? Yes! But I don't think you need to be on them the entire time as long as you have some time on them, like Jeff suggests. Since we don't know what else you are doing or where you are staying, you might get plenty of back road driving during this time. I know you are trying hard to make the perfect choices and maximize your time. But no matter what choice you make, it will be perfect and you won't have any regrets that you should have done things differently.

Hi Laura, My husband and I are planning to rent a car in La Spezia and drop it off in Montepulciano during our honeymoon in two months' time. Can you advise regarding how you handled this part of your trip? Looking at a couple of rental car agencies, Montepulciano has not been listed as a drop-off location. Also, did you decide on taking the highways or the back roads? Grazie!
Abby

Hey, Abbyyou guys are going to have so much fun! Where all are you going on your trip? We rented a car through Auto Europe's website. Our rental actually ended up being with a national company (I can't remember right now whether it was Hertz, National, or Enterprise). When we arrived at the train station in La Spezia, we had a cab take us to the rental office in La Spezia. When you rent your car, pay close attention to the hours of operation at the rental officessomeone else gave us that tip, too. They take long lunch breaks, so you wouldn't want to show up and have to wait around for 2 hours. We stayed on the highways from La Spezia to Montepulciano. Our GPS (with the d Europe maps that we purchased) came in very handyI highly recommend that you take one along. I'm not sure that you will be able to drop off in Montepulciano (I don't think you can), but you might be able to drop off in Siena and take a bus from there to Montepulciano. We kept our car while in Montepulciano. We stayed just outside the city walls in a villa on an estate, so our car was useful in the countryside. We drove to Cortona for a day trip one morning and were able to stop and take photos of the beautiful fields of sunflowerswe really enjoyed our time there. Following our time in Tuscany, we drove to Florence and dropped off the car at the airport and then got a cab to take us to our hotel in Florence. Where will you be going after you leave Montepulciano?