Where a driver can take you from La Spezia
Prime Drive drives to eight destinations from La Spezia: five tour days in Liguria and Tuscany, ten airports, the outlets and the cruise port. Portovenere is 13 km and about 20 minutes away; Lerici 11.3 km and about 19 minutes; Florence, the longest single day, about 150 km and 1h45-2h each way. These are normal-day estimates, not promises.
Which trips can I do in one day from La Spezia?
Most of them, and the deciding factor is almost always the driving time rather than the distance. These are the legs Prime Drive drives, measured center to center from La Spezia, one way, on a normal day. A hotel on the far side of a town adds real kilometers, and August adds more.
| From La Spezia to | km | miles | Driving, one way |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lerici | 11.3 | 7 | about 19 min |
| Portovenere | 13.0 | 8 | about 20 min |
| Riomaggiore | 16.3 | 10 | about 28 min |
| Manarola | 17.8 | 11 | about 29 min |
| Vernazza | 27.6 | 17 | about 44 min |
| Corniglia | 28.0 | 17 | about 46 min |
| Monterosso | 31.6 | 20 | about 44 min |
| Forte dei Marmi | 48 | 30 | about 45 min |
| Lucca | 77 | 48 | about 55 min to 1h05 |
| Pisa | 78 | 48 | about 1h |
| Pisa airport | 89.4 | 56 | about 1h30 |
| Santa Margherita Ligure | 84 | 52 | about 1h15 to 1h30 |
| Portofino | 87-88 | 54 | about 1h15 to 1h30 |
| Genoa | 100-104 | 62-65 | about 1h25 to 1h45 |
| Florence | 149-150 | 93 | about 1h45 to 2h |
Two lines in that table decide most itineraries. Monterosso is 31.6 km away but takes the same 44 minutes as Vernazza at 27.6 km, because the road climbs inland over the ridge rather than following the coast. And Florence at about two hours each way is a four-hour round trip before anyone has looked at a building.
Why do the drive times here look longer than the ones I found online?
Because the numbers most travelers find are toll-gate to toll-gate, and a journey does not begin at a toll gate. Across eight routes checked against published door-to-door figures, the optimistic version ran between 7.9 and 49.1 percent short, with a median of 22.6 percent. The clearest example is La Spezia to Genoa: one widely used calculator says 57 minutes, and the honest figure is about an hour and 25 minutes.
Quoting the larger number costs a booking now and then. It is still the right thing to publish, because the alternative is a guest who has read 57 minutes, is told an hour and a half, and concludes they are being padded.
I only have a cruise port day. Which of these fits?
Here is the driving arithmetic, round trip, with nothing else added. Disembarkation, the port shuttle, the security check on the way back and any margin you want are all on top, and the number that governs the day is your ship’s all-aboard time, which is published on board and is earlier than the sailing time.
- Portovenere, or Lerici, or both - roughly 40 minutes to an hour of driving in total. The most comfortable option on any port day.
- Two Cinque Terre villages - about 1 hour 11 minutes, taking Riomaggiore and Manarola.
- Three villages - 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours 15 minutes, depending which three.
- All five villages - 94.4 km and 2 hours 36 minutes of driving before a single stop. Nobody should sell you this as a port day.
- Pisa alone - about 2 hours.
- Portofino, with or without Santa Margherita - about 2 hours 30 minutes.
- Pisa and Florence together - at least 2 hours 45 minutes, plus the leg between the two cities. It is defensible on a long call and it is a poor idea on a short one.
If you are arriving by cruise ship, the port logistics, the tender season and the two possible landing points are all set out on the page for if you are arriving by cruise ship.
Which trip suits a first visit, and which suits a second?
A first visit almost always means the Cinque Terre and Tuscany. That is Cinque Terre by car from La Spezia for the coast, and Pisa and Florence in a day if you are prepared for the drive. Travelers landing in Tuscany rather than staying in Liguria usually want Pisa to the Cinque Terre, two villages, which is a transfer and a day out at the same time.
A second visit tends to go the other way: closer, quieter, and less time in the car. Portofino, Lerici and Portovenere covers the Gulf of Poets, twenty minutes from La Spezia in the opposite direction from the crowds, as well as Portofino an hour and a quarter west. Lucca, Pisa and Forte dei Marmi is the inland Tuscan day for people who have already photographed the tower.
Two other pages are not day trips at all: airport transfers covers all ten airports in both directions, and the five designer outlets covers the shopping days.
I am staying in one of the villages, not in La Spezia. Does that change things?
Yes, and by more than most people expect, because the road in and out of the Cinque Terre is a provincial road rather than a motorway.
Staying in Riomaggiore adds a flat 15.2 km (9.4 miles) and 20 to 21 minutes to every single destination on the table above, with almost no variation. Tuscany is the natural direction from there.
Monterosso is not symmetrical. Heading east into Tuscany it costs 30 to 32 minutes more than starting in La Spezia. Heading west it is actually 3 to 4 minutes faster and about 15 km shorter, because the road joins the A12 at Carrodano-Levanto and skips the La Spezia spur entirely: Portofino is 73.3 km from Monterosso against 88.4 km from La Spezia, and Genoa 88.7 km against 103.9 km. A guest staying in Monterosso should be offered the Riviera. A guest in Riomaggiore should be offered Tuscany.
Can the car take us into the villages themselves?
No vehicle enters the Cinque Terre village centers, or the center of Portovenere beyond the gate at Piazza Bastreri. All of them are closed to traffic, permanently, in two layers. The car reaches the last legal point and the final 150 to 600 meters are walked, by everyone, whatever they arrived in.
It is worth knowing the other half of that too. Riomaggiore and Manarola are a few hundred meters apart on the coast but 7.8 km and 14 minutes apart by road, because there is no through coastal road between the villages. Vernazza and Monterosso are consecutive stops on the railway and 19.3 km, 34 minutes, by road. The car is the right tool for getting to and from this coast, and the train and the boat are the right tools for moving along it.
Can you take us somewhere not on this list?
Ask. Every published day trip is described as customizable on request, and an Italian private-hire vehicle has no territorial limit on the journey, so the real constraint is how many hours you are prepared to spend in the car. Send the date and what you have in mind, and the answer comes back within 24 hours with an honest driving time attached rather than an encouraging one.
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