8 Quick Tips: Cinque Terre Day Trip From Florence
Cinque Terre National Park is a gorgeous collection of small towns nestled northwest of Tuscany, Italy on the Mediterranean Sea. It is a popular day trip from other cities/regions in Italy during the warmer months, and for good reason! Read on for eight quick tips for traveling to Cinque Terre from Florence.
1. Cinque literally means “five” in Italian, and the Cinque Terre National Park includes the five fishing villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, & Riomaggiore.
2. I booked a RT train ticket from Firenze SMN to Monterosso. This was helpful because I didn’t have to buy new tickets for each town (or pay for the Cinque Terre train pass) since my ticket stretched to the most northern part of CT. You will need to take your train to La Spezia first, wherever you are coming from.
3. If you’re coming from Florence like I was, note whether your train is direct to La Spezia or requires a change in Pisa. On both ways I changed in Pisa, which was simple.
4. Buy your train tickets online if you can! I left ample time (or so I thought) for the self-ticket kiosk in Florence but it took a while to process. I was running up to my train…and watched it roll away without me! Luckily, trains for La Spezia left every hour or so, but still!
5. After you change your train in La Spezia, take the train (5-10 ish minutes) all the way to Monterosso and work your way down. Each town is only about a 5 min train ride apart and the train comes frequently.
6. Wear comfortable shoes!! You can literally hike through the towns (leave super early to plan for time as it can take up to a few hours per hike) and some towns are more hilly. I wore comfortable sandals here and felt fine but most people had sneakers on.
7. Pack a swimsuit if you’d like to take a dip in the water! Just note that it is a little rockier for the most part. Monterosso had a stretch of beach with striped umbrellas.
8. If you like fried seafood, try one of the seafood cones!
Have you been to Cinque Terre? I knew I couldn’t let another year go by without catching a piece of European Summer!
