Avignon Travel Forum

I am planning to travel from Avignon to Cinque Terra this summer and I would like to know what the easier and fastest way to do this is. I will not be renting a car so my options are either train or airplane.
Thanks

I would suggest train as the countryside is quite wonderful. A car is really not needed to get around Cinque Terra. Besides walking all the "fingers" the water taxi is relatively inexpensive for moving from one town to another as well.

Do you know where online is the best place for me to book European rail tickets that don't have a substantial markup? I live in Canada.

I agree that by train is by far the most sensible.

You don't actually need to book you tickets online, you can just buy them when you are in Avignon, perhaps a day or so in advance if you are concerned. If you want to book, you should always use the country's railway website rather than Eurail or Raileurope. Both are ticketing agencies, not train operators, and (as you note) not only charge commission but do not give all possible journey times/combinations.

www.sncf.com is the French railway website, www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html is the Italian (should you decide to stop overnight in Italy (see below). Both have English pages and online booking facilities.

Trains do not get 'full-up' unless they are 'reservation-only' and there are very few of these. You can still buy tickets for such trains up to a few minutes before departure, if there is availability. If there are no seats on an on-reservation train (highly unlikely) you simply stand until a seat becomes available. Buying tickets from stations is easy, and the staff at Avignon station very helpful (in my experience).

The wonderful http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml will give you times and details of all services.

Avignon to La Spezia takes around 9 hours, with several changes. It might be a good idea to break the journey with an overnight stop somewhere.....just buy a ticket to that place, then another the next day to La Sp (or whereer you want to be based. Click 'details' on the bahn.de site to see where you have to change trains (varies accordig to train time). Possibilities include Nice, Marseilles, Ventimiglia and Genoa.

Flying would be a bit quicker, but you will struggle to find flights to anywhere near Cinque Terre (Genoa is nearest) from anywhere near Avignon. www.whichbudget.com lists European budget carriers and their destinations, or www.harefares.com You could also try www.skyscanner.net

There are no flights from Avignon to any airport in Italy: http://www.avignon.aeroport.fr/
Marseille (80 km) is the closest major airport, but with flights only (in Italy) to Milan and Rome: http://www.marseille.aeroport.fr/fra/vols/vol_dr.jsp.
Same from Nice - which would however be a good jumping-off point as you have both direct trains and buses (e.g. http://www.dianasad.it/Autolinea.htm, http://www.nice.aeroport.fr/acces_stationnement/bus/recherche.asp?lign_id=%7B6DA6BDC6-64E5-45D0-9C9E-55F16B6333C1%7D) from Nice to Genoa.

We did that trip last year (June) but stopped off at Marseilles for 1 night and then Nice for 4 nights before going on to Manarola on the CT.

There are 2 rail stations in Avignon and the one beside the city wall is walking distance to most of the hotels in Avignon. Train from there to Marseilles is about 1 hour. The other station is the TGV, but takes 10 minutes or so to get to from centre of Avignon. TGV train to Marseilles is about 30 minutes, so suggest the "local" train.

From Marseilles the trains are not the very fast TGV type and you'd stop at Ventmille (spell??) on the Italian side of the French/Italian border and then change trains. There is the Intercity which has limited stops or a range of more local trains (that was the one we got onto as there was a rail strike and we just had to grab any train getting us to CT). Not all trains stop at all the 5 stations on CT, so depending on which town you are staying in you may have to change over to a local either before or after CT (La Spezia has been suggested above). Problem with after is that you are back tracking and after a long day in and out of trains you don't need any more time.

CT is packed in summer so suggest you may like to pre-book some time in advance of your trip and don't rely on being able to just walk into a hotel and find a room. In my case the where to stay in CT was the hardest of all 15 places we stayed in during our 2 months in parts of Europe.

Everyone will have their own opinions on which of the 5 towns in CT, but my choice before our trip was Manarola and after seeing them all I still prefer Manarola.

Could I suggest you may like to break up the journey and stay somewhere along the French coast for at least a few nights - there are some amazing places along there - Monaco or Nice maybe??

I am planning on going from Avignon to Cinque Terra on a sunday. i know travelling within italy the train service is reduced. Will this cause my trip to be a lot longer, or does this train service operate consistently throughout the week?

www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html will give you train times and fares.

The summer service timetable will not be up yet, but you will be able to see the lowest-of-low season service and can be certain that the summer service will be increased.

You should have no problems on a summer Sunday. When I visited in October the coastal train services for the villages of Cinque Terre were very frequent (roughly half-hourly).

If you are travelling from Avignon, use

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

for train times/details (it's the easiest site to use) and/or www.sncf.com for train times and fares.