hello, we are planning on taking trains from venice --> cinque terre (monterosso) --> florence via pisa --> rome.
Do you recommend buying a eurorail pass or purchasing point to point tickets when we arrive in italy? Also, we want to spend a few hours in Pisa on the way to Florence. Do we hop on/off or do we have to coordinate our train tickets accordingly?
Just purchase point to point tickets when you get to Italy. If you wish to stop in Pisa you can by a regional ticket which will allow you to get out for an hour or so and then get back on to continue to Florence or you can buy tickets on a faster train. If you take the faster train you must reserve seats so you would have to buy tickets to Pisa and then separate tickets form Pisa to Florence. Tickets that are for specific trains at specific times do not allow you to stop and visit other cities. The regional trains allow you to do this but you must finish your travel with 6 hours or so.
If you buy regional tickets don't forget to validate them before getting on the train.
Donna
From your description above, I see two segments where you will be on high-speed trains (Venice/Florence on the way to Monterosso and Pisa/Rome. Trenitalia has a 10Euro seat reservation fee in addition to your pass for riding the high-speed trains. The fare from Venice to the CT is 52Euro. The fare from Pisa to Rome ranges between 29E and 42E depending on what type of train you are on. If you are on the lower cost IC train (29E), the reservation fee is only 3Euro. The fare for Florence to Pisa 5.80Euro.
Simply add together the cost of your pass, the cost for the delivery of your pass and the additional fees above and you can see if it is better than about 100Euro for point-to-point fares.
Also noting your post above, I see a later routing from Florence to Pisa. You might want to know that on your run from Venice to the CT, you will most likely change trains in Florence and you will be on a train that will go through Pisa of the way. You might look into visiting Florence first. Then you can visit Pisa and the CT before going to Rome.
