Best tours and Day Trips from Cinque Terre

For better or worse, the best things to do in Cinque Terre are activities that can be completed in a period ranging from 48 to 72 hours. At the same time, there is the fact that many people plan to stay in this national park for longer. In this scenario, tours and excursions end up being an ideal resource for tourists to depart from this site in order to get to know other corners of this part of northern Italy.

So I advise you to keep reading this post, as I have researched aspects such as prices, durations and destinations of these excursions. All with the intention that you can choose the one that best suits your budget and your expectations.

The first thing you need to know to understand what the best excursions from Cinque Terre are like is that most of these trips tend to be relatively short and are focused on visiting villages near this national park. However, they may also be aimed at other larger towns within this part of northern Italy.

That's why Portovenere, La Spezia, Genoa, Lucca and Pisa are often favourite destinations for a Cinque Terre excursion. Some of these excursions tend to be private, focusing on family groups of six or eight people. Others are aimed at groups of up to 25 participants on the same trip.

As for the convenience of these types of excursions, you should know that they are among the best things to do in Cinque Terre in winter. Especially because if you will spend a whole week in this national park then it is advisable to dedicate a day to one of these excursions in a season full of cold and rain that limits the enjoyment of the sea and the beaches. Even more so knowing that the entertainment offer in the area drops a lot when it is summer.

However, you should also know that the plan can be considered one of the best things to do in Cinque Terre in summer, at least if you want to get away from the crowds of tourists in the national park. This is because if you head to other places that are a bit bigger you will notice that they are cities where you will feel a bit less of the masses of tourists that characterise this time of the year.

Fortunately, nowadays you have the possibility of booking an excursion with these characteristics in an infinite number of ways. Of all of them, the most convenient is an online booking of the service and this is due to the simple fact that through this method of purchase you can find out very important details that guarantee the success of the experience.

Some of them may be the possibility of knowing the opinions of other people who have already made this particular excursion or the possibility of cancelling the purchase of the service for free if you do it well in advance. Being able to book these excursions for a date and time that is in high demand months in advance is also very favourable.

This avoids the difficult situation of having to arrive at the national park only to find that it is full of tourists and that getting places for the excursions you are interested in will be impossible. In fact, other tourist services that take place in this national park are usually booked through an online purchase and among them are the best gastronomic tours of Cinque Terre.

The alternative of buying an excursion to the destination of your choice directly from a tourist agency in that locality and that is departing from the town of your accommodation in Cinque Terre is something that is also available to you. The big problem is that there is no guarantee as to how much money you will get, let alone that there will be availability by the time you arrive.

It is difficult to calculate the exact duration of excursions from Cinque Terre. There are some that are designed for a couple of hours while others can take up half your day and specifically the most productive hours of the day. Either way, most of these tours are usually around 5 hours in total. At least those departing from La Spezia, the administrative area of Cinque Terre.

However, when it is an excursion that focuses on taking participants to the main attractions of a large city and even includes a lunch stop, it is possible to extend the experience to 7 hours in total. Especially if it involves cities such as Genoa, Pisa or Florence.

So it can be said that this type of excursion is one of the best things to do in Cinque Terre during a 3 day trip. Knowing that they can take place between mid-morning and mid-afternoon while the evening will still be available to explore the gastronomic and entertainment attractions that this national park offers to its visitors.

In fact, an excursion of 5 hours or less that takes you to La Spezia or Portovenere is also one of the best things to do in Cinque Terre during a two-day trip. Especially if you are visiting during the low tourist season, as many restaurants and shops will be out of business for the duration of your visit.

The things you might see on this type of tour vary according to the destination you choose. For example, if you decide to visit the other two places of interest near Cinque Terre, La Spezia or Portovenere, you will see a similar panorama to that of this national park. Portovenere is a small, modern town with a central train station and a cruise terminal that welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists annually to the national park.

Portovenere is a coastal town at the western end of the bay of La Spezia and is basically a town with architecture very similar to that of the five towns in the national park. Although in this case the beach is much more extensive and the buildings are a little more modern.

When the trip goes to Pisa, Florence or Genoa the panorama changes completely, because the truth is that in this case we are talking about going from small towns located on cliffs to cities with hundreds of years of history, with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and which are categorised as one of the most important tourist destinations in Europe.

Each stands out on its own merit, as Genoa is an important centre for world trade, Pisa is a landmark of Italian Renaissance history and Florence is one of the most important locations in Western history. Similarly, both excursions to nearby cities and those a little further away from this national park end before sunset. As such, they are often ideal as a plan before joining the best Cinque Terre evening activities.

Enjoying an excursion departing from any of the towns in Cinque Terre is not complicated by the simple fact that most of the tourist destinations in this part of Italy are interesting places that will keep you entertained in a myriad of different ways. However, there are a few recommendations that I can make to make the whole dynamic much more organised and at the same time enjoyable.

The first of these tips would be to choose your excursion schedule according to the amount of time you have available in Cinque Terre. This is because if you are staying for a full week it makes no difference whether you spend a whole day out of the area, whereas if you are only staying for 72 hours you have to decide whether it is a morning or afternoon excursion so that you can do activities that can complement your exploration of this region.

The next recommendation I can make is that you try to avoid spending too much on lunch on your own on this type of excursion. The reality is that the money can be spent more wisely on a more elevated dining experience in a restaurant in your Cinque Terre village.

Finally, the best advice I can give you is to enjoy the tour without regrets. Anyway, an excursion that allows you to explore other tourist destinations close to this national park is one of the best things to do in Cinque Terre in December. That's knowing that it's low season and the weather isn't conducive to exploring the coast either.

The exact price of an excursion from Cinque Terre is just as subjective as its duration, as it depends directly on the destination chosen. For example, a shared tour that includes the accompaniment of a guide specialised in the history of Portovenere usually costs around 170 euros per person. This does not include drinks and meals for the whole experience.

At the same time, you may be able to find an excursion from this national park to Florence or Pisa for a very similar price. There may even be a tasting of starters that cannot be categorised as a lunch, let alone a dinner.

Also, you should know that the decisive factors that affect the price of this type of excursion are the number of participants included in the experience, the type of vehicle chosen for the transfer and the language in which the guide speaks. A Spanish-speaking guide is usually more expensive than one who offers his services in English, knowing that this language is much more universal and therefore people of different nationalities can participate without problems in the experience.

If the prices of these excursions are a drawback for you, you should know that they are part of the best things to do in Cinque Terre in October and that at that time of the year the prices are lower in this national park as well as in other Italian cities. This is the end of the high summer season, which allows the low demand to make tourist services more economical.

There are really no villages that you should not miss on an excursion from Cinque Terre for the simple fact that this kind of tours are oriented to different places and each one of them is interesting on its own merit.

One of these places is the central train station of La Spezia. You will inevitably need to pass through this place if the means of transport you have chosen to reach other more distant cities such as Bologna, Pisa or Florence is the Italian train system.

In fact, it is possible that within the itinerary of these excursions you will have to take a short train ride from the village where you are staying in Cinque Terre to the city of La Spezia. From there you will take a private bus that will be reserved for you and all the other people included in the excursion.

Exactly for these reasons an excursion is never a recommended plan for those who will have a single day trip to Cinque Terre, as a good part of this activity is dedicated to the transfer from this national park to the destination to be visited and also to the return trip.

Taking part in a guided tour will always be a better experience than travelling on your own, simply because you will be accompanied by a specialist in the history of the place you will visit.

In a country like Italy, this is synonymous with enjoyment, because these are towns or cities in which every corner has interesting information, which you would be missing if you have to walk on your own following a GPS address to try to reach places that you won't get to know at its best.

The issue of logistics is also another great benefit of guided tours from Cinque Terre, because this national park is a bit isolated from the rest of the country despite being connected through its train system. So hiring a service to plan your departure from a bus or train to coincide with museum, restaurant and monument schedules is a great advantage. Especially when you are trying to focus on enjoying the experience.

Finally, there is also the issue that these experiences can save you money, as what you will spend on independently purchased tickets and what you would have to pay to have a guide at each of the sites you will visit at your tour destination are quite similar to the cost of these trips planned by a tour company.