Paris to Vernazza to Rome

Its about 11 to 12 hours for train from Paris to Vernazza and several connections along the way. You might look at flying from Paris to Pisa and taking the train from there. Vernazza to Rome is an easy train trip.
Go to http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en to see, but there is a major schedule happening this weekend and local trains are not showing up on the schedule right now and Vernazza is only accessed by local trains. So take another look next week.

The June schedules aren't out yet, but there's usually not much change. For this Friday, a good bet seems to be the 10:41 AM departure, which takes 10-3/4 hours. The earlier departures mean quite a bit more time on trains. That particular departure involves transfers in Turin, Milan and Monterosso. It's in Monterosso that you change to a regional train that stops at all the stations in the Cinque Terre. It's possible that this combination of trains does not run seven days a week, so it would be good to check it for the day on which you intend to travel next summer.

I used the Deutsche Bahn webpage to get the schedule.

It would be somewhat quicker to fly from Paris to Genoa, Pisa or Florence. Flights can be very inexpensive if bought very early. Use skyscanner.com to explore your flight options. At least some of the June schedules are already loaded; be sure to use the right date/day of the week when checking.

Flying into Milan or Bologna would also be faster than the train, but not as efficient as one of the three closer airports suggested above.

Vernazza to Rome is relatively simple and will take between 4 and 6 hours. For domestic trips like this, all you need to do is specify the origin and the destination and choose the particular departure time/duration that look best to you. Unless you have a desire to travel on a particular route, you need not specify one. The website or the ticket agent from which you buy the ticket will figure it out for you.

Normally you would take a regional train to La Spezia and switch to a faster train there. There may be additional transfers, depending on which departure you choose. The train will go through Florence, but you might not have to change trains there. Always look at the total length of the trip, not just the departure time, because it can vary quite a bit.

Just throwing my vote in for flying into one of the Italian airports suggested versus taking the train from Paris. While we enjoy train travel (and air travel can have its drawbacks) I wouldn't personally want to spend that sort of vacation time on one.

Yes, take the train from Vernazza to Rome.

I think it would be faster and know it would be cheaper to fly from Paris. Pisa or Genoa would be the airports to look into regional flights to.

I would say in Vernazza there are zero "hotels". There are B&B style places though usually without the B (no breakfast is served)
AirBnb is the best place to look for all types of lodging in Vernazza, all of the room renters and agencies seem to be using it to list their available properties right now (same applies to Manarola, Corniligia, RioMaggiore ; Monterosso is a little different, being larger there are actual hotels there so might want to look at a site looking Booking or favorite hotel site as well as AirBnb for lodging in Monterosso.

Take the train from Vernazza to Rome.

Stayed in Vernazza for 2 nights in September at Camere Fontana Vecchia. We loved it. Very clean and comfortable and a quick walk to just about everywhere in town.

Thank you one and all for the great ideas and detailed suggestions. Your advice has given me a better sense of what the train ride involves. It would be nice to get to the b&b in Vernazza before dinner and before it gets too dark. I'll look into flying into Italy and also at the various stops along the train route to see how manageable they would be. Grazie mille.

Adrienne,

That's a long trip by train as to it would take between 11 - 14 hours with as many as six changes.

In this situation there would seem to be two choices you could consider.....

1. Travel by train but stop for a night or two in an intermediate location, perhaps somewhere in Switzerland. That would break up the long journey into two shorter segments.
2. Take a budget flight from Paris to Pisa (which is close to Vernazza). I'd probably use easyJet from Paris / ORY to Pisa / PSA. The flight is 1H:40M and prices are currently listed at €45.23 (there will be a few extra fees of course). They currently show one flight per day, departing at 13:50 and arriving 15:30. The rail trip from Pisa to Vernazza is as short as 1H:29M (one change at La Spezia), and if you use the 16:29 departure, you'd arrive in Vernazza at 17:58.

Getting from Vernazza to Rome is very easy. Check the Trenitalia or bahn.de websites to find the departure times for the direct trains from La Spezia Centrale to Roma Termini (travel time about 3H:45M). When you've determined which one you want to use, buy a ticket either online, from a Kiosk or the local ticket office. You'll also need to buy a ticket for the Regionale train for the trip from Vernazza to La Spezia (that trip is only about 15 minutes).

In Vernazza, here is our favorite:

http://www.elisabettacarro.it/

Ken, thank you for mapping out the details of a trip by air to Pisa then train to Vernazza. It's certainly a lot less stressful than going by rail the whole trip. I had thought that the train ride from Paris to Vernazza would serve as a kind of down time for us but the transfers alone would be bewildering. I also really appreciate the step by step advice and train schedule suggestions for the entire trip.

Bob, thank you for the link to the place in Vernazza. That 360 view from the terrace is amazing.