Itinerary help Paris to cinque terre

Hi Joan. Cinque terre is one of our favorite places. One easy way to get there from Paris is a flight to Pisa on EasyJet; then a one hour train ride. Train all the way from Paris to CT would be ten hours. Of course there are many other great places to visit also. Suggest you get Rick Steves books if you haven't. Also fly into one city and out of another; for instance into Paris, out of Rome or Milan. Enjoy your trip!

Joan, For travel from Paris to the C.T., there are a couple of options you could consider. As the previous reply mentioned, you could use a budget flight from Paris to Pisa (or other nearby airport) in order to avoid a long rail trip. From there you'd travel by train to the C.T. The other choice would be to stop at an intermediate point for a night or two, in order to "break up" the long rail journey. Some locations you could consider are Nice or Lucerne. As you want to do some swimming, you may want to base in Monterosso, as that has the nicest beach of the five villages. However, there is a small enclosed harbour in Vernazza also. Good luck with your planning!

hi joan, you will have several stages of travel by train: paris - nice on tgv nice - genoa
genoa - monterosso (one of the CT) we did this, but the other way, from CT to paris. we stayed 2 days in the nice area. enjoy.

I suggest Nice, by train or Easy Jet, then to CT, then go to Pisa and fly where-ever. Flying IF you don't have a lot of luggage.

If by train, I would look at a route Paris to Turin or Milan, then on to Monterosso or La Spezia from there. It can be done in one long day. Train travel via Nice takes longer and has at least a couple of train changes. If time is tight, fly Paris-Pisa then train to CT. Return to Paris by flying from Pisa. You can hike from Monterosso and swim there, as well.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I did not realize that air travel could be less expensive than train! So, I think we will fly to Pisa and train to Cinque Terre. We usually go to the beach for two weeks or out to a national park, so we are outdoors people. If we have one week of vacation remaining, should we just stay in CT and relax or should we do day trips out from there, or would a week of swimming and exploring just CT be too long? Should we stay a few days and move on? Thanks for helping us!

Joan, Train travel from the C.T. to Rome is very easy. There's at least one direct train (no changes) from La Spezia to Rome daily, with a travel time of ~3H:45M. If your Son wants to hike in Switzerland, the Berner Oberland (outside of Interlaken) would be a great choice!

Joan, I cannot imaging staying more than a couple of days in CT area. If swimming is paramount, I guess a Med location on the Italian or French riviera is best. However, if hiking is at least as enjoyable, I would recommend England or Switzerland. Both are very scenic and offer great hiking opportunities. Certainly the most convenient from Paris would be eurostar to England and visit areas from Sussex to Cornwall along the southern coast. Spectacular coastline with towering cliffs and many, well marked paths. Switzerland in the Lauterbrunnen area offer spectacular mountain scenery and numerous hiking trails.

Well, if you are used to beach vacations, then I guess you could spend an entire week in the Cinque Terre. Hiking between the villages would take up one day, maybe one other day to actually wander through each of the towns, and then you could spend the rest of the week on the beach in Monterosso. There are boats that go between towns too, and you could to a few other riviera towns to explore, though they are all really similar. I was there for three full days, and could easily have stayed longer, but there really isn't a whole lot to do. Also, the towns are quite busy during the day, so if you want peace and quiet, this isn't really the place (except in the early morning or in the evening). If you want to spend more time actually doing things, I think I would do what some other people have suggested and stay in the Nice area for a few days. But, if you are ok with a relaxing week sitting on a beach, then the CT is good - a bit expensive though. The beach in Monterosso has a free area, but the chairs and umbrellas have a rental fee.

Thanks for the replies. My son would like to visit Switzerland, so maybe we scrap CT entirely and hike there. An alternative, which might just be too much city, is to head to Rome for a few days and check flights from there. How is train travel from CT to Rome? Thanks a million. Someday we will nail this second week down!

Last Sept we flew into Paris took a train through Provence, the Riviera area then down to CT. We enjoyed everything except the train trip from Nice to CT. It was an excruciating train ride...LONG...and it stopped at EVERY town...there must be 10 stops in Genoa...didn't think we were ever going to get there. I would NOT EVER do it again. I liked CT but I didn't LOVE it like Rick and others do. Nice was nice and of course there is a beach there. If you would like to swim there I would highly recommend swim (aqua) shoes cause that beach isn't sand, it is rocks and they are very hard on the feet. The people with aqua shoes were the only ones without a painful expression on there face. Have a great time.

You'll do as much hiking in Paris as you do in the CT. CT may be more rural but there will still be a lot of people in the day time. We went from Paris to The Dordogne and it was night and day. Depending on your son's age there is a ton of things to do. Lot's of people swim in the river while floating past castles. We saw a lot of RV's on the road. Not easy to get to but it was worth it. You need a car while you are there as well.

Thanks Richard, I am so interested in the Dordogne region but have been concerned about renting a car and driving from Paris. We have never driven in Europe, but we manage in NYC and Chicago! Where did you stay in the region? sarlat sounds like a good base. Any additional specifics would be very much appreciated, such as driving info, car rentals, accommodations and activities. We have about 6 days then we will need to get back to Paris, unless we try to fly out of another city. We love to canoe, swim and bike and the caves sound fabulous! I need help narrowing down the area and activities, and a shot of bravado for the driving. Thanks, Joan

Joan, if you go to the Dordogne region, you will want a car. Sarlat is a reasonably substantial town to use as a base. There are numerous places to stay and many restaurants. Also a wonderful street market, although I don't recall which day(s). However, the drive from Paris would be lengthy. You might want to look into trains to either Sarlat itself or Limoges. It appears that Paris to Limoges is a bit over 3 hours; Paris to Sarlat, about 5 1/2 hours.