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train travel from Cinque Terre to Venice

I am looking for the least expensive train travel from cinque terre to venice, on thursday, may 21. I understand that Trenitalia is a train company whereas Italiarail is a broker of sorts. I have been on the Trenitalia website and am having difficulty finding a ticket. It says they do not offer service from Le Spezia or Monterroso or to Venice. They do not list a US phone contact. I am wondering if it would be cheaper to buy through Trenitalia and cut out the middle man (Italiarail). You CAN contact Italiarail by an 800 number.

Posted by
15678 posts

The problem with Monterosso is that you're trying to book too far out. La Spezia to Monterosso will be a regionale train, and they don't sell tickets online for those more than 7 days in advance. You also don't NEED to buy those in advance as they're very inexpensive (2.70 euro) so purchase them at the station the day of your journey.

For Monterosso to Venice, there definitely are trains but the Trenitalia system has been buggy today: took me a couple of tries to get anything to come up so I'd try again? Be sure you're entering the Italian name of the station in Venice (Venezia S. Lucia) unless you're staying in Mestre. Yes, use the Trenitalia site.

You might also try clearing your browser if you've been entering/re-entering info in the Trenitalia site. For some reason that seems to help when the system refuses to show what I know it should.

Posted by
15678 posts

If you're trying to go directly from La Spezia to Venice, you don't have to enter two legs (La Spezia to Monterosso and Monterosso to Venice) unless you're wanting to be in Monterosso for awhile? Just enter your departure/arrival stations as La Spezia Centrale - Venezia S. Lucia (or Mestre).

Posted by
7448 posts

The Trenitalia site will work, though when I tried just now, I initially received a message that no travel solutions were found. It worked better in the Advanced search function.

First a couple notes, verify that you are picking a station in the dropdown box, you are interested in La Spezia Centrale and Venezia S. Lucia or Venezia (tutti le stationi) The site is pretty unforgiving if it does not recognize the station

Next, if your date is 8 months out, then schedules are not loaded yet, search for a date next month just to get the hang of it and get a rough price.

Also, there is a box to indicate train type, you want "all Trains" or "Tutti"

I was finding tickets in a couple weeks ranging from 28 euro to 45 euro and travel times from 4 hours to 6.5 hours

Posted by
12 posts

After a couple of tries, I've gotten a ticket to appear on Trenitalia on 5/21/2015 for Monterosso to Venice, 18 euros in 2nd class. Goes via Milan, the segment Monterosso to Milan is Intercity 674, the segment Milan to Venice is Freccia Bianca 9745. It took me a few tries before some bookable alternatives appeared, so it does look like Trenitalia is a little buggy today.

Posted by
32171 posts

royal,

I had a look at the Trenitalia schedules today, and all the solutions were listed. One of the easiest trips will probably be a departure from Monterosso at 09:05, arriving Venezia S.L. at 14:20 (time 5H:15M, two changes in Pisa and Florence, price currently shown as €36). One leg of that trip is via Regionale and the other two are InterCity and Freccia.

I didn't go through the purchase process on the website, but I'm assuming it's working normally. If that's the case, the Italliarail website should also process purchases.