Transportation from MXP to Cinque Terre

You said directly, there is no direct route, you have to go through Milan Centrale station.

This site will show you schedules

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

enter starting point as Milan Centrale

Take the train from Milan centrale west, it stops in Santa Margarita Ligure then the CT. I recall about 1.5 hr trip. you can get the Malpensa express bus from airport to Milano centrale train station.

You can also check train schedules on the Italian railway website - www.trenitalia.it. Be sure to use the Italian names of the towns, e.g. Milano. Appears there’s a train leaving Milano Centrale at 2:00 pm and arriving in Monterosso at 5:02 pm that requires no changes. If going on to another of the Cinque Terre towns, you would catch the local train at 5:30 pm for the short final leg of your trip.

Thanks for your help! I've read about a bus that goes straight from MXP to Genoa. Do you recommend that? Or is that a big hassle?

and also another question: I was given to websites to check out- www.bahn.de/international... and www.trenitalia.it. Are there two different outfits that run these train routes? Do I need to choose either one or the other?? What is the cost of the fare one-way? I'm sorry- I tried to figure it out- but I'm a little slow at this. :0/

Casey: re your last question, the Trenitalia website is the official Italy train site. It will show you fares up to about 60 days from now but not beyond that. But you can't buy tickets in advance online because the Trenitalia site rejects all US credit cards.

The Bahn website is, technically, the German train site--but it shows schedules (but not fares) for most of Europe and is considered the most user-friendly website for looking at schedules, that's why I linked you to both.

According to the Malpensa airport website, the bus to Genoa only runs twice a day at 11:30 am and 8:00 pm.