Rome to Vernazza

Tyler
From Rome, you can take the train from Rome Termini (Rome main station) to Vernazza. (Vernazza have one station only). The shortest route will be one train change in La Spezia ( La Spezia Centrale station). Take about 4H20M.

Tyler, As rick mentioned in the previous reply, the easiest and quickest method will be to use one of the direct trains from Roma Termini to La Spezia Centrale. There are also other trains with changes, so you'll need to check the Trenitalia website to find departure times for the direct trains. When you reach La Spezia, you'll transfer to the local train to Vernazza - it's only about a 10-15 minute ride. When you buy your ticket, be sure to specify your end destination of Vernazza. Happy travels!

Thanks for the help. Would you recommend buying the tickets in advance or waiting until we depart and buy them at the station?

I've also got another question. Being that our time is limited and we only have between 5 and 6 days to see BOTH Rome and Cinque Terre I have an option that I was wondering anyone has any experience with. I was looking at some of the train times and I here would be our options and wondering what you think would be best: Keep in mind we arrive in Rome at 6pm on Friday will be leaving Wednesday night from Cinque Terre back to Paris 1) Take the night train from Rome on Sunday (Departs at midnight and arrives in Vernazza at 5am (would give us 2.5 days in both Rome and Cinque Terre) 2) Take the earliest train on Monday from Rome, which would arrive in Vernazza at noon on Monday (Give us 3 days in Rome and 2 days in Cinque Terre Here are my thoughts about the night train: Positives---Would save us a night of hotel, give us more time in Cinque Terre as we would not be wasting an entire morning traveling.
Negatives---Good chance we would get a bad nights sleep on the train in our seats and could end up being way to tired to do anything that first day in Cinque Terre Any help is much appreciated!

Tyler, Where are you getting your rail information? I checked and wasn't able to see a train departing at midnight and arriving at noon. There was one departure at 23:28, arriving 04:51, but I can assure you that will NOT be a pleasant trip. I'd suggest travelling during the day from Rome to the Cinque Terre. That's a relatively short and easy trip. I'd use a departure on Monday morning from Roma Termini at 08:10 and arriving Vernazza at 12:22 (time 4H:12M, one change at La Spezia). That will still give you much of Monday, all Tuesday and part of Wednesday to tour the C.T. I would HIGHLY recommend pre-booking your accommodations WELL in advance. If you use the trip I suggested, you will only be able to pre-purchase the ticket on the Freccia train about 120 days in advance or 90 days in advance for other premium trains. Note that tickets for those trains are specific to a particular train, date and departure time, so once purchased you'll be "locked into" using ONLY that train. If you board any other train, you'll face hefty fines which will be collected on the spot! The leg from La Spezia to Vernazza will be via Regionale train, and those are not easily purchased in advance and there's no price advantage for doing so. You can just buy Regionale tickets from a Kiosk at Roma Termini a few days before you'll be travelling. DON'T validate the tickets until just prior to boarding the train on the day of travel! One other point to note is that rail schedules for next year won't be loaded on the website until about December (they're d twice a year). However there likely won't be too many changes from the current schedules. How are you planning to get from the Cinque Terre to Paris? Cheers!

If you want to take a night train, you can head to Paris on the Thello night train. Leave Vernazza at 18:31 arrive Milano Centrale at 22:00, Unfortunately, since Sept 1, it requires you to proceed to Milano Lambrate station on the Metro Green Line 2 stops away. Leaves Milano Lambrate at 22:58 and arrives Paris Gare de Lyon at 9:30 next day. The train makes only one stop on the way at Dijon at 6:30, and has sleeping compartments available.

Thanks for the advice so far, very helpful information. To answer your first question, I was getting my rail information from the Eurorail website, I just used rough estimates (4:51am = 5am) to give you a general idea of the times, so I think we are on the same page in terms of the times. My wife was a little hesitant about taking the night train from Rome as well, as that being on a schedule like that could really throw our bodies off. So I'm thinking departing the earliest training and arriving around noon Monday is going to be our best bet. Also, I know you had mentioned the 120 advance comment. I assume the train times are consistent each day? Because I was not able to view train times for June, so I was just using any random day in October for my times. Please let me know if the trains are on the same schedule each day We have already booked our accomidations in Vernazza for 2 nights (Monday and Tuesday). I had read that those book up fast, so luckily that is all settled. That was going to be my next question, was what is the best way to get to Paris. Based on what I've read the best option might be to fly from Pisa (correct me if I'm wrong). Hopefully we could get a late flight on Wednesday night to give us all day still on Wednesday in Cinque Terre, since it sounds like the suggestion was to not bother with the night train and just take the earliest train leaving Rome that Monday morning. Because the the train ride from Vernazza to Paris would eat up almost half a day (looks to be about 10 hours), so I think since time is limited for us, we would like to do the most efficient route. THanks!

Unless you want a l-o-o-n-g train ride, take a flight from Pisa. The last time I took a train from CT to Paris, it took about 14 hours with several train changes. I went through Genoa. Nice, and Marseilles.

I recently took the direct train from Roma Termini to La Spezia, where I changed to a regional train for the last part of the trip. I pre-purchased on the Trenitalia website about 120 days in advance. It sold me a high-speed train ticket for 19 euro and the regional ticket for 2.70 euro. The regional ticket was pre-validated as of the scheduled departure time and valid for 4 hours. My scheduled regional train was cancelled, but I simply boarded the next available regional train (which is allowed). If there are any changes after you pre-purchase your ticket, Trenitalia will send you an e-mail with new information. My high-speed train number and arrival time changed (by only a couple of minutes), and I received an e-mail. If you can commit to a specific departure time, definitely pre-purchase to get the significant discount from the standard fare. Economy allows more flexibility than Super Economy, but usually costs 10 euro more. Check the Terms and Conditions for specifics.

You can use current schedule for planning purposes. All the European trains adjust their schedules twice a year, mid December and mid June, Germany had the winter schedules out a couple of weeks ago, France yesterday, and Italy always waits till the last minute. edit- Use www.bahn.com to look at schedules. They have all of the European train schedules loaded on their computer, while Raileurope only shows some. You don't have to be going to Germany, they have all the stations and schedules. You just can't buy non German tickets.
From Vernazza to Pisa there is a connection on the half hour every hour from 16:30 on. Its 2 hours or less to Pisa Centrale. They are shutting the Pisa Airport train station in December, and replacing it with some sort of tram system. Until that is complete in a year or so, they will have shuttle busses from Centrale.

Tyler, I'd suggest NOT using the Eurorail website for obtaining rail information. They're a marketing firm and sometimes only list trains that they sell tickets for. The best site for researching trips throughout Europe is www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml, which is the German Rail website. For trips in Italy, I generally use www.trenitalia.com (click the tab that says "Tutti I Treni"). Regarding travel from the Cinque Terre to Paris, my preference would be a budget flight from Pisa to Paris / ORY. I'd suggest EasyJet and they have one flight per day (according to current schedules), which departs PSA at 16:20, arriving ORY at 18:00 (current fares as low as 48.99€ PP). You can use the OrlyVal train and then RER "B" to reach central Paris. I travelled a similar route in late June and it's a very easy trip). When booking with budget airlines, be sure to read their Terms & Conditions carefully, especially relating to luggage limits. If you think your checked luggage will be over the allowable weight, it's cheaper to pay for higher weights at the time of booking, rather than at the gate. Also note that some budget airlines only allow ONE carry-on item per passenger, and they DO enforce that. One other point to mention - if you're planning to buy a Paris Museum Pass, you can do that at ORY while you're there. Only takes a few minutes. Cheers!

For your train journey from Rome to Vernazza, just a bit more information on routing on Trenitalia. There are two ways to do this. The easy and quickest way has been described above. You travel from Rome-Termini to Vernazza with a train change at La Spezia Centrale. This routing goes west to Civitavecchia and then north to La Spezia. You will stop in Pisa. Your train from Rome-Termini could be a Frecci fast train if you plan carefully. Since the Frecci fast trains do not stop in the CT, you will most likely change to a Regionale train for this last segment. A second routing goes via Rome/Florence/Pisa. Here's a snapshot of what these runs look like. http://gyazo.com/898e1aee3bb235f2aeed7745b0285a16 Note the runs with one train change at La Spezia Centrale. These are runs I describe above. A second note is that you can buy up to 119 days out (I find that 120 days doesn't really work) for the Frecci fast train runs. However, Trenitalia refreshes their train schedules twice a year. Once in mid-June and once in mid-December. Trenitalia is notorious for being tardy in posting these refreshed schedules. Even now, we can't look out to mid-February because the new schedules have not yet been posted. So, if you travel dates are after mid-June in 2014, you could go through two of these schedule refreshes. Interesting stuff. The schedules will eventually appear and if you jump on shortly after the runs are posted, you can buy tickets in advance online. These tickets are heavily discounted but they are also non-refundable and non-exchangeable for the super economy tickets. You will need to know your precise date and time of travel to take advantage of these tickets.

Thanks for your help. So in summary here is what it sounds like the majority have suggested we do. 1) Rome-Vernazza -Day the earliest train in the morning (can book 119 days out, so check the times in March), from Roma Termini to La Spezia Centrale. -Use www.trenitalia.com to check Italy train times -Then take a regional train from La Spezia Central to Vernazza. -Buy tickets in advance for a discount 2) Vernazza to Paris -Take the Easyjet out of Pisa -Be sure to check any baggage fee's for the airline Does that sound about right? Last two questions A) How early should we plan to arrive at the train station before our train departs typically?
B) How do we get from Vernazza to Pisa? Thanks for your help!

Tyler, Regarding the points you mentioned..... 1.) Take the earliest direct train from Roma Termini to La Spezia Centrale. That may be a Freccia or an Intercity. How early you can book may depend on the type of train. You likely won't be able to pre-purchase your Regionale ticket from La Spezia to Vernazza. Just buy that from a Kiosk a day or two before you head to that area. DON'T forget to validate prior to boarding the train on the day of travel! 2.) Be sure to book early with EasyJet to get the best prices. Be sure to note their allowable baggage limits for checked luggage and if you think your kit will be over that, pay for the overage at the time of booking. Also note that EasyJet allows ONE carry-on item per passenger and they DO enforce that, so pack accordingly. A.) I'd suggest about 20 - 30 minutes prior to departure. That will give you time to locate which track (Binario) your train will be departing from. B.) Take the train. Check the Trenitalia website for times and details. Note that service from Pisa Centrale to the airport will be provided by Bus at that time, as the rail link to the airport is being changed to a different system. Cheers!

Thanks! Regarding the flight from Pisa to Paris. Since Easy Jet only has one flight and it departs at 16:20, that would mean we would have to leave Vernazza around 12pm in order to get to Pisa in time for our flight. We were really hoping to catch a later flight that day in order to give us more time in Cinque Terre. But based on what I see all the other airlines besides Easy Jet are about $100 more expensive. Does anyone know of any other budget airlines besides EasyJet that will provide low prices and more flexibility that one flight per day?