The National Park of the Cinque Terre is a world famous tourist destination, is interesting both for hikers and for those who want to enjoy unique panoramas in this little corner of paradise.
The Cinque Terre are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, all are reachable by train and also by boat, except for Corniglia.
From our hotel, the villages are easily accessible as we are just a few minutes far both from the railway station and from the wharf. The ferry service, operated by the Maritime Service of Tigullio is active only in high season and not every day, but we’ll talk about that in another article.
Today we talk about how to reach them by train.
This year has been inaugurated the 5TERRE EXPRESS, is a local train that moves from Levanto to La Spezia, and back, stopping in all five villages and leaving every 30 minutes (approximately) – to use this service the most convenient thing is to buy the Cinque Terre Card (currently costs € 12.00 for adults and worth 24h - the cost should be increased to € 17.00 by the end of the year), this card has to be validate as a train ticket and fill in with your name and surname on the back. The card has a validity of 24h from the validation and allows you to use the train as much as you need inside the Park in both directions, you can also use the local buses and walk in all the paths.
So starting from the Sestri Levante railway station you'll have to buy a return ticket to Levanto at the cost of € 3.40 per person each way for regional trains and then to the Sestri station or directly to Levanto you can buy the Cinque Terre Cards.
An alternative for those who decide not to walk and want only to move by train would be to buy a round trip ticket Sestri Levante - Riomaggiore at a cost of € 4.00 per person each way (always with the regional trains), this ticket has a validity of 6 hours from the validation time and you can stop about 1 hour in every village. This solution is certainly the most economically advantageous but it seems that the Park intends to force all visitors to the Cinque Terre Cards, in this case we will inform you in time!
Below you will find the train schedule!
Enjoy your visit
The staff!