A day trip: from Florence to the Cinque Terre

While it is true that the best way to enjoy the Cinque Terre is to stay at least two or three days, it sometimes happens that you do not have enough time to do everything. If you are staying in Florence and want to visit the Cinque Terre in one day, here are our suggestions:

– Take an early morning train to get to La Spezia Centrale by 10:00 a.m. All trains leave Firenze Santa Maria Novella about every half hour and take between 2 and 3 hours.

The Cinque Terre Card

– Another tip is to buy the Cinque Terre Card in advance on the Park’s website (link) to avoid queues at the station. The card allows you to get on and off the train in all the villages between La Spezia and Levanto (i.e. Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso). The train is the cheapest, most practical and sustainable way to reach and visit the villages. In the high season, from March 16th to November 3rd, there are trains every 20-30 minutes and in the low season about every hour.

– If possible, come to the Cinque Terre during the week, avoid bridges, and avoid July and August. In addition to finding a lot of people, tickets have risen sharply during these periods (new 2024).

Read the full article about the Cinque Terre Cards.

Here you can see the train timetable and buy tickets.

Which villages to visit?

Considering that it is impossible to see all the Cinque Terre villages in one day, you can manage to see 3 without rushing too much.

Here they are in brief:

Riomaggiore: the most populated village and perhaps the liveliest. Characteristic is the colorful little port.

Manarola: one of the most photographed. A charming, very easy path allows you to see Manarola from a unique point of view!

Corniglia: a little more difficult to reach because it is at the top of a flight of 377 steps. A comfortable bus (included in the Cinque Terre Card) can save you the walk. The boats also do not come to Corniglia because of its inconvenient location, and for this reason Corniglia is perhaps the least visited village. We recommend it also for this reason, but in just one day it can take too long time.

Vernazza: a small jewel, the square with its small church opens up at the end of the main road and offers an exciting spectacle with small boats and colorful houses.

Monterosso: bigger and more spread out on the plain than the other villages, therefore a little less characteristic, but if you are looking for a sandy beach, this is the only place to find it.

Read this article to know more about all the Cinque Terre villages

If you want a guide for your day, you can book one here

You can also opt for a car transfer from/to Florence to shorten the time (by car it takes about 1.5-2 hours).

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