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Milan-Cinque Terra-Lake Como

We have 7 nights this fall and I need to decide how to spend them. More importantly how to make the most efficient use of our time in regards to traveling between places. We fly int LIN airport on a Saturday around 11. We would like to spend 3-4 nights in Cinque Terra and 3 nights in Varenna on Lake Como. We currently have a car rented. But I am leanin toward spending our first or final night in Milan and getting tickets to see The Last Supper and tour the Duomo. Our itinerary would look like this?

Arrive Milan on Saturday Train to Cinque Terra. This would involve getting from LIN airport to th central train station. Not sure if that is a taxi ride? Stay 3 nights in CT. Leave Cinque Terra Tuesday This is a long day of train travel (5 1/2hours But having a car only potentially saves us a maybe an hour). Spend 3 nights in Varenna on Lake Como. Friday take the train back to Milan and do a quick tour and be ready for our 10am flight the next morning.

Should we continue with our reservation for a car or do we cancel it and utilize the trains? If we get a car we are thinking of parking it in the underground garage at the La Spezia train station and taking the train into CT from there anyway.

Posted by
1234 posts

Forget the car.
Everything is easily accessible via train. Why pay to rent a car, and then leave it parked? You can't drive in the Cinque Terre.

Posted by
15825 posts

I agree: the car is definitely not an asset in the CT, you don't need it in Varenna (use the ferries) and don't want it in Milan.

Depends on where you stay in the CT but I am seeing some train times of 4.5 hours from Monterosso (northernmost of the CT cities) to Varenna, albeit the earliest is pretty early. It's up to preference how early/late you're willing to get out of town to shorten the train time.