NORTHERN ITALY

We just booked a 17 day trip for June.

We will be flying into Rome; than jumping on a train up to Florence. We will be staying with family 45 mins outside of Florence in Via Reggio (Lucca).

From there we plan on heading to Cinque Terre as well Sestri, Cavi di Lavagna and Borgotaro.

Any tips or suggestions on getting from each place.

We are still up in the air about renting a car. I spoke to family members who have all told me that we can get to these places using the train and it would save us $$$ this way.

I also heard that you can do boat rides to the Cinque Terre from Liguria. Anyone know anything about this.

DH wants to spend at least one or two nights in the Cinque Terre region - be it IN Cinque Terre or right outside in Cavi Di Lavagna, Sestri etc. Anyone have an affordable hotel they can recommend.

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

Borgotoro!!! DH's family is from a town about 10 minutes from there! I've been there several times. It's a cute town but can I ask why you chose here?

When we go to Itlay, we take the train from Borgotoro to everywhere. We've gone to Florence for the day as well as Cinque Terre. It's so easy to get around by train.

If you're planning on staying in Cinque Terre, make sure you book a place before you go. We were going to stay there a night or two but things book up super fast and it's expensive.

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

Oh, that's right. Didn't we talk about this once before???

Have you been to Cinque Terre before? It's my favorite!! We go whenever we go to Italy. We take an early train from Borgotoro and spend the whole day there. When we get there, we buy a ferry ticket and go from one town to the next. It's so beautiful.

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

When I studied abroad we took the train from Florence to Cinque Terre, it is so easy to do (Euro Rail) I would look int that

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

No, we never got to hike through CT. I did get a map of the trails once but since we only go for the day, our time was limited. I remember they give you the time it takes to do each trail. I thought that was neat. They also tell you how difficult each trail is.

The train from Borgo to CT is, I think, about 1 or 1 1/2 hours. It wasn't bad at all. I would never drive there. We have access to a car when we are there and we drove once to go to the beach (Chiavari) and it was a NIGHTMARE!!!!! The roads are all one lane, windy roads through the mountains and I was terrified. DH is a horrible driver to start with and I thought we were going to die. We had gone the year before with his cousin driving and that was fine but for someone that doesn't know the roads, it was awful. The train is nice and you can both sightsee. I don't know how you are about the heat and since you are going in June, it might not be that bad but, we always try to buy a first class ticket, if the train has first class, because it has a/c. The rest of the train doesn't. It's not that more expensive and well worth it if it's really hot out.

I've been to Sienna too! Not with DH though - pre DH. It's beautiful!!! Not sure how you would get there by train though. I do know that you can go to Pisa because when we went to Florence, we had to transfer there.

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

Re: NORTHERN ITALY

definitely look into the trains. DH's family has a house there and when iwent for the first time last year, we rented a car and the tolls on the Italian highways are crazy expensive.

Definitely , definitely do Cinque Terre.... and I love Bobbio (a small city, but lovely)--- Piacenza would be the nearest bigger town. Parma was also lovely.