Cinque Terre by train and boat (no ferries in winter)

Fantastic villages! Veronica was wonderful and knowledgeable and suggested a wonderful way to return to La Spezia via beautiful Portovener.

Very beautiful area very popular and victim of its success.We visited the Cinque Terre by car ...expensive parking between 10 and 20 euros..To do by train or boat....to see.Seems to be many walks ...paid...it is Italy..

This was a great way to start our trip and learn how to ride their train system, visit the villages, find the best shops, café, views and restrooms. Our guide Veronica was wonderful, so informative, passionate, knowledgeable, helpful and made it a great experience. After our tour, we felt so comfortable exploring all the 5 villages of Cinque Terra and even Levanto.

Our group of 4 agreed that this was an average experience (at best) but definitely not worth our money. Veronica was just not an engaging tour guide and had absolutely no personality whatsoever. She gave us some information about the cities/areas that we visited, but I found myself envious of other tour guides nearby who were providing their groups with much richer information and details. Veronica kept stopping our group in direct sunlight when it was extremely hot outside instead of finding shaded areas. After 4 hours of enduring this, we were dehydrated and when I tried to provide her with this feedback, she argued that there wasn't any shaded area and that she could give us less information instead. She was clearly not receptive to the feedback. The final straw was when she gave us instructions to buy train tickets at a tabac shop across the street from where we had a lemoncello tasting but didn't bother to come over with us. We managed to purchase our ticket just fine; however, at the train station, she took our tickets to go validate them and barely came back in time for us to catch our train. We could have easily validated our own tickets upstairs on the terminal. Once she returned our tickets, we ran upstairs just in time to catch our train but for whatever reason, she stayed behind with other people in our tour group and didn't even notice that we had already gone ahead. I received a message from her once we were back on our cruise ship asking us where we were and that the train was leaving in 2 minutes!?! What? We already took the train back to La Spezia Centrale (at the time she instructed us to purchase our ticket), caught a cab back to the port terminal from there, and were already back on the cruise ship by then! We never saw the people who were also on the tour from our cruise to ask what happened but, clearly, Veronica did not even realize that 4 people from her group were gone. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this tour or guide after our experience.

Veronica was great. Knowledgeable and kept us on track to see interesting aspects of town. Part walking tour with some train and ferry. Lots of stairs.

Veronica was lovely and made the experience really enjoyable. We visited three villages in Cinque Terre and learnt a little about their history and primary attractions. Our group was a diversified group with people from different countries and with different levels of fitness and Veronica managed the group well keeping everyone happy!! We enjoyed some fresh local focaccia and a local wine tasting as part of the tour - which made it even more special. We would highly recommend this tour as an introduction to the area.

Beautiful beautiful surroundings and villages where you will learn a lot about the history and about life there. Front and train combination is advisable because you can admire the surroundings from both sides

Visiting Cinque Terre was one of my favorite places to visit while I was in Italy thanks to our guide, Veronica. She was very knowledgeable of the area as well as being accommodating to our needs on the tour. She helped us navigate the train system and the ferry boat ride. She was very friendly and courteous to everyone in our group and did a wonderful job of explaining everything in both English and Italian for the people in our group. I also loved that our group was very small with only 8 of us. It made walking and learning about Cinque Terre a breeze. Veronica made sure she showed us around each of the villages and shared their history and also gave us time to explore on our own. She managed our time very well and made sure we returned to La Spezia on time to return to our cruise ship! This was an all around fantastic experience!

Veronica was an amazing guide!! She was so patient and relaxed. She was super well informed and attentive to our needs. This tour felt like the best way to see Cinque Terre in one day.

Veronica was a wonderful tour guide and showed us all the beautiful coastline. She was very knowledgable about the history of the area and made a very enjoyable day for us. Getting on and off the train to walk the different villages was lovely and she allowed just the right amount of time in each place. We didn’t use the ferries as the sea was rough that day but the trains were a comfortable choice. Would highly recommend this tour with Veronica as a small group allows for chatting and asking questions. Very enjoyable!