Staying in Santa Margherita. Reading this site and other sources, appears train rather than car is way to go to Cinque Terre. Recommendations with respect to parking: Rapallo or La Spezia. Train to Monterosso or Riomaggiiore. Appears that trains between towns are quick and inexpensive, but costs add up. Any ticket allowing stops at several towns in the area?
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Not sure about parking lots in Rapallo but there are at least two in Levanto. One is at the train station. With rare exceptions, tourist cars are not allowed in the 5 towns. However, there are two lots above the towns which are quite full during the high season.
There are frequent trains each day that go through the CT. The trains are very inexpensive. However, there is a Cinque Terre pass that you can buy in 1-day, 2-day, 3-day and 7-day flavors. These passes permit unlimited train travel between La Spezia in the South to Levanto in the North. It also permits free travel on the hiking trails between the towns.
Santa Margherita is a bit northwest of Levanto and you would need tickets between those two towns.
Posted by
OP
washington
837 posts
Thank you, Larry. It's great to see so many west coast contributors. My wife and I lived in Sacramento for 22 years, moving to the DC area in 2000. I will look into the 1 day pass. I will also check into Levanto. We could drive there or we could walk to the station in Santa Margherita.
David
Posted by
Spring Branch, tx, us
1 posts
We were in the CT in September 2007. The trains between the villages are quite inexpensive - just a couple of Euro, I think. Another option is the boat/ferry that goes among four of the villages, which is more expensive than the train, but I think it's a lot more scenic and fun.
Our hotel was in Monterosso, and we were tempted by the parking "near the hotel". After all, we'd driven in Italy on at least six previous trips, so we drove down to Monterosso. We wouldn't do it again. The road is very long, narrow, twisty and just plain scary. And, there's a chance, after all the white knuckles, that the lot will be full and you'll get to drive up again. Plus - the parking is quite expensive, around 15-20 Euro per day, if I recall correctly.
Posted by
Lebanon
711 posts
David.. We were in the Cinque Terre last May. Since it was the last large segment of our trip, we dropped off our car that we had for 3 weeks and took the train from La Spezia. We dropped off the car in La Spezia, took a cab to the train station, and went by train to Vernazza. We were there for 7 days and went everywhere. ( We are photographers ) To take the train from one village to any other is very ,very cheap 1-3 euros. ( I think you can even continue in the same direction if under 6 hours. Then at the end of our stay, we took the train from Vernazza all the way to Pisa, stayed overnite, flew from Pisa to Rome , and Rome to Cincinnati. I hope you are spending some time in the Cinque Terre, because it is lovely. Quite crowded , but better at night when the throngs of tourists have left. Vernazza was a zoo during the day, but very mellow after 5 P.M.