Train Travel from Venice Cinqueterre

We have always travelled by train and 8 to 9 hours does sound like a lot of time. But when you factor in that where as you can go from Santa Lucia station to any station in the 5 towns with may be changes in places like Florence, Pisa and La Spezia, versus travelling to Marco Polo airport either by water taxi or train then travelling from Pisa's airport to La Spezia and then the town you want to go to, it sounds like less time but more work.
If you are going to several places and you are still working on the itinerary, then look into doing say Venice to Florence and then going to Cinque Terre. But in our itineraries, I have found that sooner or later, there is one big journey.

I searched the timetables at www.bahn.de and arbitrarily entered Vernazza as your destination. If you take the night train from Venice to Genoa and two more trains from there, the total time is 8hr40min. If you take all day trains, the minimum total time is 6hr30min. IMO, the night train would be the way to go. It saves you the cost of a night in a hotel and gives you more daylight hours for sightseeing.

When I looked up Cinqueterre to Venice it was only 5/5 hours by train?!

If you are not a fan of the night trains, the easiest route is from Monterosso to Venice (change in Bologna) because it there is only one change. Many of the others you have to change 2-3 times and that is really a pain - especially if one train is running late. It leaves at 7:35am and takes 5 hours 53 minutes. The most current train information is in the Trenitalia website.

What about train travel from Florence to Cinque Terre?

Mark, Using an arbitrary date of 16 April, I did a brief search and the rail journey from Venice to the Cinque Terre is very easy. NO, don't fly as that's far more trouble and will undoubtedly take longer.

The train I'd probably use departs Venezia Santa Lucia at 08:43, arriving at Vernazza at 15:33 (time 6H:50M, one change at Firenze SMN, reservations compulsory). It's a bit of a long day, but not unreasonable for rail travel.

Happy travels!

Judith, the trip from Florence to the Cinque Terre is also very easy.

Again using an arbitrary date in April, I checked that route using Vernazza as the destination.

There's a train departing Firenze S.M.N. at 07:51, arriving Vernazza at 11:32 (time 3H:41M, one change at La Spezia Centrale, resrvation compulsory. Other trains on that route have more changes, so I tried to pick the one that provided the easiest trip.

Happy travels!

Ken! It's a zombie post! Run!

Why are we playing with a post that is almost 2 years old? Judith should have posted her own new question which, by the way, was different from the original.

Doug, you're right, I don't always check the dates of the OP. However, at least the information for Judith was current.

Cheers!