My friend and I are going to Cinque Terre in a couple of weeks. We’d like to hike and explore during the days but want to return to our same Airbnb at night. I want to know if we can take a train to the town we want to start hiking from, then take train back to our starting point each night. Does this make sense as a way to see Cinque Terre? Will the Cinque Terre train pass work for this? Also we are planning 5 nights. It sounds as if this may be too long.
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
11680 posts
WE have done just that in late October a couple of times, once for 5 nights and once for 7. There are so many paths to choose from, not just the famous Sentiero Azzuro but the higher trails are magnificent and usually less crowded. The higher trails do not, to my knowledge, require a park pass. We always bought point to point tickets as we never found the train pass to pencil out. We also used the trains to go to a neighboring town for dinner on occasion and for a change of scene you can take the ferry to Portovenere or the bus to Lerici. Lerici is on a delightful gulf. Check out the blog A Path to Lunch for all things Liguria.
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
16409 posts
Sure, you can hike to a different town and take a train back as long as that town has train service. All 5 of the lower Cinque Terre villages (Riomaggiore, Manaola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso) do, as well as the "gateway" towns of La Spezia and Levanto. Villages up in the hills, however, do not so if not hiking back down to one of the 5, you'd have to take a bus.
2 sections of the very popular Blue Trail, SVA2 route between villages (Corniglia>Manarola and Manarola> Riomaggiore) have been closed for quite some time due to damage and will not be opening again anytime soon so to hike between these 3 involves longer, usually more strenuous trails. Wet or otherwise foul weather that can make any of the trails unsafe can close them temporarily as well.
The park's website is useful if you haven't found it yet:
http://www.parconazionale5terre.it/Eindex.php
Trail map (black trail lines means closed):
http://www.parconazionale5terre.it/Esentieri-outdoor.php
Another terrific site for lots of info about the region:
https://www.apathtolunch.com
A little about bus services to/from a few villages up in the hills here (your pass will cover use of these):
https://www.cinqueterre5.com/en/cinque-terre-by-bus
Yes, the Treno MS pass will work BUT they only come in 1, 2 and 3-day amounts.
http://www.parconazionale5terre.it/page.php?id=158
Yes, I'd stay in one spot as the villages are only a few minutes apart by train. Late October temperatures could be just great for hiking but a stretch of rain could leave you with little to do during the day. Depending on where else you're planning to go, I might look at trimming back at least 1 night if you're cutting something else a little short?
Adding: apologies, Laurel, on the redundancy of the "Path to Lunch" website. I'm a sloooow typist so was still banging away while you were posting!
Posted by
30 posts
We were there a few weeks ago. Did two hikes and took trains to and from different towns. Purchase the pass that pays for trails and trains, that way you can just hop on and off the trains without having to purchase separate tickets. We stayed in Monterosso, our first hike was from there to Vernazza and we took the train back. Second hike we took the train to Corniglia and hiked to Manarola and took the train back to Monterosso. The hikes were a highlight of our Italy trip and so glad we did them - fantastic views - we are pretty fit and they were a workout but not difficult. We were there for two nights and wished we had stayed a little longer to do more hikes!
Posted by
Portland, Oregon
5687 posts
Yeah, this is what I've done every time with the trains - there is great train service up and down the Italian Riviera. No need to limit yourself to the Cinque Terre, with five nights. Take the train north up to the Portofino peninsula for a day - to Camogli, Santa Margherita Ligure, and Rapallo. You take take the ferry between them and do some hiking up there as well.