Venice - Cinque Terre-

I would take the train to CT via Florence and wait until you are leaving CT to rent a car in La Spezia. Or, you could stop for two nights in Florence on your way to CT. My husband and I left Rome to Venice, then stopped in Florence before we took the train to La Specia/CT. We took the train to La Spezia and walked to the Autoeurope car rental about a 10 minute walk from the train station then did our Tuscany/Umbria touring. It took all day to get to the agriturismo just outside Siena from La Spezia. There really is no parking in CT and you can get there easily by train via Florence, not directly from Venice as you have to make several train changes and it takes more than 4 hours if I remember correctly. This is just my opinion of what we did. I made the B&B reservations BEFORE checking the train schedules and going from Venice to CT was a real headache so we stayed in Florence for a couple nights before going to the CT. It worked out great! Let us know what you decide to do. We did drop our car off in Orvieto and hopefully you can spend a night or two in Orvieto. There is a lot to see..

1. Pros: it is a great place to vist Cons- one night not much time, particularly when you factor drving down from Venice. You may not have as much time in the CT as you would like. 2. I would recommend spending a night in the Cinque Terre. It is a bit of drive from Venice, so get a very early start. 3. The drive is mostly autostrada, fast but expensive. There is a free superstrada from Florence to Pisa...but given your time frame where every second counts, I would stay on the autostrada. We found superstradas to be slower. 4. You use a train to get from village to village (or walk). Driving between the villages is not a good idea. 5. There is parking right at all the towns, but it fills up fast and is a bit of a gamble getting a place. We park in Levanto, but given your plans you would probably be best to park in La Spezia and take a train in. 6. We used this web site for booking an apartment: http://www.acasa5terre.it/houses.html

and it worked out great. The one thing you didn't mentiion is when you are going. Hope this helps

Don't try this by car. Parking is extremely limited in the CT and takes a long time to get to. There is no driving between the towns; you need to take the train.

From the itinerary you're describing, you'd be at best able to enjoy a late afternoon/evening in the CT before getting up in the morning to get back to your car to drive to Siena. Enjoy a 4th night in Venice, instead.

IMHO, your initial plan looked great. Adding the CT introduces some additional time constraints that will be tough for a 1-day visit from Venice or Siena. You can drive to the CT but don't count on parking there. Except for rare circumstances, tourist cars are not permitted in any of the five towns. There are parking area above the towns but these are completely full during the high season. They even close the roads into the lots. A rental car is really a liability in the CT. The train from Venice takes 8.5hrs.

From Siena, it's a 4.0hr train ride to the CT with 2-3 train changes.

Thanks for the replys. We can spend 2 nights in CT by cutting one day from our stay in Sienna agriturizmo. Does it make a sense?
This is how the itinerery would look:
1. Arrive in Venice by air by 3 pm on May 14
2. Venice -3 nights: May 14 -17
3. On May 17 drive from Venice to CT
4. 2 nights in CT
5. On May 19 drive to Siennna. Stops in Luca and Sienna.
6. 3 nights ( May 19 -22) in Agriturizmo near Sienna. On one of the days we plan to train to Florence
7. On May 22 drive to Orvietto, drop the car there and spend 2-3 hours in Orvieto
8. Train to Rome
9. 4 days in Rome.

Ah, the siren song of the CT. This plan is much better. As mentioned above, you could have a serious parking problem in the CT. Many posters end up parking in Levanto and taking the train into the CT. There are parking lots there. Or, you may try to stay at one of the very few hotels in the CT that have their own private parking lots. You will be permitted to drive to them. I believe that there is a charge to park in these private lots as well. Your rental car will be invaluable in Tuscany and Umbria. It will work well there.

Dimitri, IMHO as much as I loved CT, it seems like you are mainly adding travel time/days to your itinerary. So much of each travel day is taken up by checking in and out, locating correct routing, and finding your new accommodation. Exhausting. Your original itinerary looks great given the total time available. You'll experience more of the local culture if you stay more nights in each city. When you settle in to your Siena agriturismo (great location for touring Tuscan hill towns) you'll be glad to relax each evening with food and wine gathered along the way soaking up the experience of being in the Tuscan countryside as you return from your day trips. If you do visit CT, by train is the simplest and best method. Have a great trip. Sherry

Dimitri-I like the new schedule (2 nights in the CT). We did the same amount of time in each city (3 nights Venice, 2 nights CT and 3 nights at an agritourismo in Greve) and I thought it was great.(We did it in a little different order and only had 3 nights in Rome.) I think fitting in these 4 areas in the amount of time you have is very doable.

If I were you, I'd stick to the original plan and leave the CT for another trip and I like Liguria ;-)

the way your trip is structured, it just takes too long to get there and having a car in the CT is a disadvantage.

I feel you would be better served by leaving it for another time.

It looks like including CT in our itinerary makes the trip too complicted based on the feedback.
But we are still thinking if we want to cut our stay in Venice to 3 nights instead of 4. We are not particularly interested in glass and lace (Murano and Burano). One idea is to add a day to Toscuny ( it would be 5 nights in Sienna agriturizmo). Any thoughts what to do with that extra day? Originally, we were planning to do a day trip to Florence and spend the rest visiting the hill towns.

Thanks

I'd keep the night in Venice, but then I love Venice. We were there for eight nights a couple of years ago. we'll probably stay a bit longer next time.

It is however your trip, but there is plenty to do and see in Venice for four nights without going to Murano or Burano.

You might want to think about eliminating Venice entirerly or at most 2 days. As Alice or Gerty used to say, there is no there, there ( at least in the past 20 years ).

Attack in three seconds................

1. This may have been resolved, or maybe I'm missing some info, but I don't understand why you want a car to visit places where a car is useless and a hassle.

2. It's easier to take the bus from Siena to Florence than to travel by train.

3. Dimitry, do you have a good travel guide for Italy? I ask because of your question about driving and parking at CT villages leads me to believe you may not good info.

Getting out of Venice and driving to CT required a stop for the night at Modena. It's a long way, Venice isn't a place to hop in your car and head out and you can't drive directly to your CT lodging (except maybe Monterosso) so the day just becomes too long.