Traveling from Cinque Terre to Amalfi Coast. How long would it take?

That question is impossible to answer without know where you'll be going on the Amalfi Coast. Can you provide further information?

This is the quickest morning connection as far as Naples.

RE 24453
Dep 07:20 RIOMAGGIORE
Arr 07:27 LA SPEZIA CENTRALE

FA 8691
Dep 07:44 LA SPEZIA CENTRALE
Arr 10:40 ROMA TERMINI

FR 9407
Dep 11:23 ROMA TERMINI
Arr 12:35 NAPOLI CENTRALE

From Naples, you should transfer to the docks from Napoli Centrale train station and take a ferry. The 14:00 would be the earliest you could catch using the train schedule above:

http://www.capri.net/en/ferry-schedule

So figure about 8 hours, one-way. If you're thinking of doing this as a day trip, it's MUCH too far away!!!!

Yeah, as Kathy says, with transfers and so forth, combination of train & bus, it would take 8+ hours to get from La Spezia to Amalfi-town. Probably similar to Sorrento if you want to go to Capri from there.

In short, there's no good way to do this. For our long journeys, we've always broken up the ground travel so we weren't on the road for more than 4-5 hours a day max, staying overnight halfway at a hotel right by the train station, or taking an extra day if the halfway point was particularly interesting, as was Lucerne, Switzerland when we were traveling by train from Paris to Florence.

Eight hours of travel in one day is not only onerous, it's a waste of a precious day.

Excellent point from Jay: 8 hours in transport is an expensive waste of time you could otherwise be using to have fun. The Sorrentine/Amalfi area requires at least 3-4 nights to do properly, and from traveling distances closer than the CT.

Thanks for info. Baed on how far it is, I am trying to decide if i should see Cinque Terre or Amalfie Coast?

Give us your whole proposed itinerary time-wise and then we can help you better. The C.T. and A.C. are definitely different in scenery and culture but I'm not sure that seeing both on the same trip is necessary.

We visited both CT and AC last year, and, while both are lovely, we preferred AC. We are pretty active 66 and 72 years old, but the towns of the CT are all small and very hilly. Our room was up a steep climb and so we made one trip out per day, which inhibited our exploration. The AC is much more spread out. We took the bus to the various towns, and the ferry to Capri. It was just much more enjoyable for us, for our purposes. Also, the AC is more able to accommodate the large crowds which you will encounter in August.

I'd agree: providing the rest of your itinerary and how much time you have will help. Also what your interests are? What do you intend to do during a stay on either part of the coast? I also wouldn't necessarily exchange one for the other if Capri was the only point of interest that far south.

" I am trying to decide if i should see Cinque Terre or Amalfie Coast?"

If your trip is mostly going to be in northern Italy and you only have limited time, then the Cinque Terre makes more sense. If you only have two nights and want to do a day trip to Capri in that time, the Amalfi Coast is not the best choice, given the transportation times to get there and back.