Most logical way of getting to Cinque Terre?

Hi Elly. There's no right answer; you can do these five in almost any order. For instance, you could also do Milan, CT, Rome, Florence, Venice, or many other ways. It might depend more on other things like flight costs / availability or other factors. For train schedules, see trenitalia.com. Enjoy your trip!

Elly, It would help to have a bit more information. Have you already booked flights into Milan and out of Rome? In order to minimize travel times, I'd suggest this order (travel times indicated in brackets): > Milan (2H:35M from Milano Centrale to Venezia S. Lucia) > Venice (2H:08M from Venezia S. Lucia to Firenze S.M.N.) > Florence (2H:26M from Firenze S.M.N. to La Spezia - a few minutes longer to the C.T. town you're staying in) > Cinque Terre (as short as 3H:21M from La Spezia Centrale to Roma Termini, depending on which train you choose - add a few minutes to get from C.T. town to La Spezia) > Rome Each leg of this suggested Itinerary is easily manageable, and avoids the long trip from Venice to the C.T. You can fine tune your travel details such as departure and travel times using the Trenitalia website. Happy travels!

Thanks for the replies! David: I will have been in Europe for several weeks before I go to Italy, so this will be the last stretch of a 5-6 week trip. I don't really have any limit to the amount of time I can be there. Ideally I'd like to spend 2-3 days in each city. I don't have any flights booked yet, but I will most likely be flying in from Amsterdam so I'm just trying to figure out what city makes the most sense to fly into and then where to go from there. The only reason I was thinking of flying into Milan is because it is the cheapest flight. Otherwise, it is not high on my priority list. Ken: As I said above, no I haven't booked my flights yet. Since the cheapest flight goes to Milan, your suggested itinerary looks good. But doing it that way would mean I'd have to pay for the train from Milan to Venice, which makes me think that maybe I should just pay a bit more and fly straight to Venice? Should I just skip Milan? Thanks for the help!

Elly, Whether to skip Milan or not will depend on what you might like to see there and your personal preferences. It's very important for some visitors to see The Last Supper or have a look at La Scala. In this case, I'd suggest flying directly from Amsterdam to Venice and start your trip in Italy from there. Expand your time in the other locations and save Milan for another occasion. Check the Which Budget website for flights from AMS to VCE. Your best bet will probably be Vueling, but unfortunately they have a layover in Barcelona so the trip will be longer than with a direct flight. Cheers!

It's a long leg between CT and Venice. We drove and ended up staying a night in Modena between the two. I think CT from Milan makes much more sense (via Genoa rather than La Spezia?), after that you could go straight toward Rome (adding Pisa as a day stop) then Florence (maybe via Orvieto) and Venice. If you roundtrip through Milan, a stop in Verona on the way back from Venice would be good too. Depending on how you get to Rome, you will probably have some backtracking either way but backtracking between Rome and Florence is much easier and less time consuming than between Venice and CT, I won't do that leg again.