Hello, I'm new to the postings here. We are travelling to Italy for the first time and are planning 7-8 days for rome (3 days), florence (2 days) and cinque terre (2 days). We hope to fly into Rome, the rest of it is flexible. All dates are approximate (and really hopeful) as we are still planning our itinerary.
My question is, considering the most budget-friendly options, what are the best train routes (or any better options) to get from each city to city to maximize our sight seeing times? How do we get to Cinque Terre from Florence, and should we consider flying out from Milan?
We are considering an open-jaw ticket with the following: coming from california into italy, from italy to greece, and eventually back to california.
Any details such as train names would be appreciated! I've looked at Trenitalia, and I'm a bit lost as what the differences between the trains are, aside from price and route.