We are planning out our 10 day (ish) trip to Venice-Florence-Cinque Terre in May of 2015. We live in Asheville, NC. What city would be the best to fly into? Or should we fly into a bigger city and take a train there? The options are (almost) overwhelming...help!
Posted by
Kissimmee, Fl, USA
12 posts
Emily
We have become great fans of open-jaw flights. This saves us the time and expense of back tracking to the arrival city. As an example, in 2012 we flew into Venice, trained to Florence and rented a car to tour Tuscany. Returned the car to Florence, trained to Rome and returned home from there. You might try flying into Venice, take a train to Cinque Terre, then train to Florence and home from there.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA
360 posts
To get to the CT from Venice, you'd go through Florence or Milan, so it may be cheaper to do Florence last (we flew into Venice and out of Rome with CT, Florence and Tuscany I. Between). I believe the closest airport to the CT is Pisa, so may depend in prices too?
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16238 posts
OPTION 1:
fly to Venice
train from Venice to Florence
train from Florence to Cinque Terre
Train from CT to Pisa or Genoa or even Milan.
fly back from one of the 3 airports above.
OPTION 2:
fly to Venice
train from Venice to Cinque Terre (via Florence or via Milan)
train from Cinque Terre to Florence
fly back from Florence.
The two options above work also in the reverse, although I don't recommend to fly back from Venice, because getting to the Venice airport is a long pain in the neck especially with an early AM flight.
My choice would be no. 2, because with number one you need to spend the last night in one of the 3 cities mentioned (Pisa, Genoa, or Milan) because the CT is not close enough to any of those airports (you need at least 90 min. to get the the closest of the 3, which is Pisa). However if the price is substantially cheaper flying back from Milan, then you might consider that option.