From Sarlat to Cinque Terre

Direct, no. But there is lots of good stuff between Perigord and the Italian Riviera.

The question is, do you want to spend 3 days getting to the CT (with stops enroute), or do you want to get there as quickly as possible and have more time in Italy?

You could also check air options from Bordeaux (if you haven't already).

The most direct route by train would be Sarlat-Souillac-Toulouse-Marseille-Nice-Ventimiglia-Genova and then on to the Cinque Terre town of your choice. The Sarlat-Souillac leg would be by bus.

You can leave Sarlat at 08:02 and arrive in Nice at 22:37. You could spend two nights and a full day in Nice. The earliest you can leave Nice is 05:23. Using Vernazza as an arbitrary destination, you would arrive there at 11:05.

To see all your options, use the timetables on the German Rail site. First do a timetable search for Sarlat-Nice. After you get summary timetables, click on the arrow to the left of each departure time to see the connecting points. Or simply click on "Show details for all." Then do a search for Nice to the CT town of your choice.

Important note: Trenitalia, the Italian Rail site, hasn't uploaded its summer timetables yet so the German Rail site won't show them. Enter an arbitrary date no later than 12 June. The new timetables which will go into effect on 13 June should be virtually the same.

Thanks so much for your replies. I noticed that the Italian trains haven't posted the Summer timetables yet.

We have two small children so we might just decide on the air from Toulouse to Genoa-via Munich. Someone suggested we might want to spend a couple days in Munich as well. Not very direct, but actually doesn't seem so bad. We will have a car and I think can get to Toulouse pretty easily from Sarlat.

Usually we prefer trains, but it does seem that in this instance it would be fairly time consuming unless we work in some stops.

Thanks for all your help!