Venice to Cinque Terre

Although you'll be travelling next week, you may still be able to save some money with advance purchase tickets. If you'd rather wait to buy tickets, you can certainly do that but you'll be paying the highest price tier (Base fare).

You'll only be able to "hop on the next one" if the train is a Regionale. The express / high speed trains have compulsory seat reservations, so tickets for those are specific to train, date and departure time. If you "hop on" the wrong express train, you'll face hefty fines which will be collected on the spot.

If you decide to buy tickets locally, you also MUST remember to validate (time & date stamp) tickets for Regionale trains prior to boarding the train on the day of travel. Failure to do so will likely result in hefty fines!

The quickest and easiest option appears to be a departure from Venezia Santa Lucia at 09:35, arriving Vernazza at 15:13 (time 5H:38M, 2 changes in Florence and La Spezia). The first segment is via Freccia high speed train, which will have compulsory seat reservations. Your ticket will specify your Coach No. (Carrozza) and Seat No's. (Posti). The latter two segments are both Regionale, which don't require reservations.

If you want to buy advance tickets, have a look at www.trainline.eu or the Trenitalia website. The Trainline website is very user friendly once you're registered on the site, and they also have an App. They sell tickets for several of the rail networks in Italy, as well as rail networks in other parts of Europe (France, Germany, Spain, etc.) and prices are the same as charged by the rail networks.

If the train is late and reserved and it is NOT your fault that you missed the connection, go to an agent (probably Trenitalia on that route) and the agent should put you on the next train(s). If the next train is a regional train (no seat reservations), you don't need to talk to Trenitalia agents unless the next train is more than four yours later than the original.

Definitely explore the route options ahead of time for later trains in case you miss your connection. Know what your options are ahead of time. I always do that. If you know the next train if you miss a tight connection is only 30 minutes later, that's much less stress than knowing it is four hours later.

Likely your fastest trains will include at least one reserved train that is cheaper now than booking at the last minute. Again, check the Trenitalia website (or www.trainline.eu which will show you Italo trains too e.g. between Venice and Florence). Your best routes will be through Florence or Milan most likely.

Last May, I waited until the very last minute to decide my itinerary in Italy and needed to book a train from Venice to the riviera (to Camogli north of the Cinque Terre). I found a route using only regional trains - a little extra travel time, but no extra cost buying them at the last minute. But it had two tight connections, in Verona and Milan. I worried about making them obviously. Turns out, I made both of them, in part because the Milan to Genoa train was late, and I missed my Genoa to Camogli train. But there were plenty of later trains to Camogli (2X an hour I think) so this wasn't a big worry. All regional trains so didn't need to talk to anyone.

If you have an Android smart phone, I recommend the Trenit app, which lets you check real-time train delays and platform info. I used it last year. I knew my Milan train was late, so I didn't worry about missing the connection as I rode the previous train. And I could check later trains on the fly. (You can also buy tickets with the Trenit app and show them on your phone.) I hear the Trenit app is not available for iPhones in the US app store, however.

If you book through Florence, then it should be a direct Freccia train to there, then Regionali trains from there to Vernazza, so you should be able to just catch the next train(s) to Vernazza. You will have seat reservations on the train to Florence, then prevalidated Regionali tickets for the continuation. They will be valid for 4 hours after the train specified on the ticket departs.

For instance, if you book the 9:35 Frecciarossa to Florence connecting to a Regionale to La Spezia, you have a 13 minutes train change (easy connection). Then the Cinque Terre Express train to Vernazza.

If you miss the Regionale in Florence, you'll have to wait 1 1/2 hours for the next train to Pisa that will connect to La Spezia. Time enough for a nice lunch in the station.

The Cinque Terre Express train goes every half hour, and there are other Regionali that will get you there between those.