The Cinque Terre by car, with a driver from La Spezia

Longer than a motorway map suggests, because almost none of this is motorway. These are normal-day estimates on a provincial mountain road, not promises: in high season the SP 370 and the spurs down to Corniglia and Vernazza both stretch.

There is no coastal road linking them. The SP 370 exists in two disconnected pieces, 14.547 km from La Spezia to Manarola and about 4 km between Monterosso and Levanto; Corniglia and Vernazza are reached by climbing to the ridge road, the SP 51, and dropping down a narrow spur.

The car gets you to and from the Cinque Terre; the train and the boat move you inside it. These roads also bend continuously, through three tunnels out of La Spezia and narrower still along the ridge, so if anyone is prone to car sickness, say so when you book. The front seat and a stop at the top of the climb both help.

Two, comfortably. All five in order is 94.4 km (58.7 miles) and 2 hours 36 minutes of driving before you have stopped anywhere at all.

A village takes an hour and a half to two hours: you walk down, which is easy, you look at it, you eat something, then you walk back up, which is not. Three villages is a long day. The crowd window travelers describe is roughly 10:00 to 16:00, and a car is the one way to be in a village outside the window the trains create.

The pairs that work: Riomaggiore and Manarola, the quickest from La Spezia and the pair this day is built on; Vernazza and Monterosso, more road but a harbor and a beach; Monterosso and Levanto, fifteen minutes apart, for sea and fewer people. Corniglia is the slowest to reach from any direction, because the road loops inland and comes in above the village.

Sometimes, and we will say so if it is true for your day. Between two adjacent villages it is cheap and unbeatable. The honest comparison:

• The train has no view. The line runs in tunnel for most of its length between the villages.
• It is crowded in summer, in the middle of the day, in either direction.
• A car is immune to a rail strike, and strikes in Italy are announced rather than rare. A landslide on the SP 370 stops both.
• A car does not save you half a day. Anyone telling you it does is selling. What it saves is the standing, the timetable and the walk from the station with the bags.

A good day often uses both: driven out in the morning, a train or the ferry for one hop, and your driver waiting at an agreed point for the run home.

Only for what it covers: the paid trails, the park shuttle buses, including the one between Corniglia station and the village, and the train. For 2026 there are two cards, Treno and Trekking; the Plus card is abolished and the Via dell’Amore is integrated but still needs its own reservation. The train card is priced in three demand bands between 14 March and 1 November, and at a fixed off-season price after 2 November.

Entering a ZTL without authorization is an offence under article 7, paragraph 14 of the highway code: 83 to 332 euro, and each entry is a separate offence, so a day in and out of three villages is not one fine. If you live outside Italy, article 201 allows the authority 360 days from the moment the offence is recorded to notify you, counted from posting rather than from your receiving it, and enforcement runs for five years. The rental company does not pay it; it passes on your details and charges its own administration fee first, usually weeks before the fine arrives.

Then parking, which is not where people expect it to be:

• Riomaggiore: Piazzale Lavaccio is reserved for buses, the school bus and the municipal police, and nothing over 3.5 tonnes gets in. At least one village car park has a 1.95 meter height barrier that a large hire car will not clear.
• Manarola: the twenty stalls at the barrier are residents only.
• Corniglia: the two timed stalls at Piazza Ciappara are for pass holders and Corniglia accommodation businesses; the car park of around sixty spaces is 500 meters before the entrance.
• Vernazza: parking sits outside the village, about 1.3 km out, with a free five-minute shuttle; Fontanavecchia has three loading stalls with a one-hour limit.
• Monterosso: two genuine car parks, Fegina with 270 spaces and Loreto with 160, open 24 hours year round. Fegina is about five minutes on foot from the station and ten from the ferry dock; Loreto fifteen and five.

The SP 370 is landslide-prone: alternating one-way working after a landslide in April 2025, and around twenty days of further works reported in February 2026. We publish no road status here, because it would be wrong within a week. The Provincia della Spezia keeps a live list of closed provincial roads, and it is worth checking the day before you travel.

In four of the five villages the walk in applies to your party too, so the question is which village has the shortest and flattest approach. Monterosso is the flattest, and the one we drive into. Portovenere, twenty minutes from La Spezia, has a flat seafront, although the town behind it is steep. Corniglia is the hardest: the Lardarina, the staircase that links the station to the village, is 33 flights, roughly 380 steps, about twenty minutes. By law an Italian private-hire operator carries wheelchairs and mobility supports free of charge. Tell us plainly what the limit is and we will tell you which village works.

Included: the car and driver for the agreed itinerary, up to 8 passengers, pickup and drop-off at the address you give us with 15 minutes of waiting, Italian, English and Russian on board, and payment by Visa, Mastercard, Maestro or American Express. Not included: guiding, meals and paid admissions, and the last stretch on foot into the village.

The fare and the terms that go with it, what the price covers, what is billed separately and what happens if you cancel, are confirmed in writing with the quote, which comes back within 24 hours, before anything is booked. We publish no figure here, because a Cinque Terre day changes with the pickup address, the villages and the hours.

If what you need is a journey rather than a day out, the same car does plain transfers as well, including long-distance ones.

• Two villages, Riomaggiore and Manarola say: about 1 hour 11 minutes of driving, round trip. Comfortable on most calls.
• Three villages: roughly 1 hour 45 to 2 hours 15, depending which three. Workable on a long call.
• All five: most of the day through a windscreen. We do not sell it as a port-day product.

Getting off the ship, the port shuttle and the security check on the way back sit on top of those numbers, and none of it is under anyone’s control. Build the margin in when you choose how many villages to attempt.