train Venice to Cinque Terre with stops

Lin, First of all, a few questions and comments..... Which of the five C.T. villages will you be staying in? What are you planning to do with your luggage during the time you're in Verona? How long do you want to spend in Verona? It's certainly possible to travel from Venice to the Cinque Terre via Verona, but it will be a LONG TRIP (minimum of about 8H:50M, assuming a 2-hour stopover in Verona). While it's certainly feasible, you could also stop in Verona for one night to "break up" the longer trip. If you just want a brief stop in Verona, the simplest and easiest route I found was a train departing Venezia Santa Lucia at 06:20, arriving Verona Porta Nuova at 07:30. Departure from Verona at 10:05 and arrival at La Spezia Centrale at 15:18 (total time 8H:58M, one additional change at Milano Centrale, reservations compulsory on all legs of the trip). There's another train with the same routing departing Venice at 07:50, arriving La Spezia at 17:18 (total time 9H:28M). I used La Spezia as the destination in researching the trips. You'll have to travel either via La Spezia or Genova to reach the C.T. anyway, and it's not a long trip from there to any of the villages. When you buy your tickets, be sure to specify your end destination so that you don't have to buy another ticket in La Spezia. The trip from La Spezia to the C.T. will be via Regional train, so no reservations are needed. Happy travels!

Good question. If you book any train types other than the Regional trains, you must have a seat reservation. Thus, if you booked the typical EuroCity high-speed from Venice to Milan and got off at Verona-Porta Nuova, the remainder of your ticket is toast as the train departs. That ticket is only good on that train. What you can do is buy separate tickets from Venice/Verona, Verona/Milan or even Veronal/Monterosso (you will change trains in Milan anyway). Yes, the tickets are a bit pricey on the high-speeds. As for the Regionales, they do have them but you won't see a run from Venice to Milan. They take just over 2hrs to get to Verona (twice the time) but the fares are about 50% of the high-speeds. For the Regionale trains, there are no seat reservations permitted. You buy your ticket and get on. It's like a bus in that fashion. Also, there is no date, train number or departure time on the ticket either. It's an open ticket good for 60 days on that run. Note, however, that once you validate it, it's good for 6 hours as no Regionale train has a run beyond that time range. You can buy all of your Regionale tickets when you arrive in Venice. Just be sure to study the www.trenitalia.com website a bit to learn what times the train you want departs. When using the Trenitalia website, just don't put in a date beyond May for planning. Trenitalia updates their schedules in mid-June and looking beyond may not be accurate. If you need more assistance, we can help further. Just ask.

You won't want to take the regional, trust me. It seems like you stop every 5 minutes. The intercity trip with no stopover in Verona would be ~6 hours. I think you can get off with just the intercity to Milan, though I don't know for how long. Someone else may know though. Or not Looks like someone beat me to it

We will store our luggage at the train station. I think we may stay at Vernazza. We plan to stop in Verona for just a couple of hours I think. Yes it does look like a long train day, but it might be nice to just sit and watch Italy go by after doing so much walking in Venice and more when we get to the CT. Thank you all for the help. I think I see the routes we must take now.