Tuscany to Liguria
Pisa to the Cinque Terre: two villages of your choice
A private car from Pisa airport to the Cinque Terre takes roughly 1 hour 40 minutes to Riomaggiore, a free-flow floor and not a promise. The day is two villages of your choice. No direct train runs from Pisa to four of the five villages. Your driver tracks the flight and waits with your name on a tablet.
| Duration | [[TODO: total duration for pisa-cinque-terre]] |
|---|---|
| Drive time | [[TODO: driving time each way for pisa-cinque-terre]] |
| Distance | 104 km |
| Passengers | 8 |
| From | [[TODO: from-price per vehicle for pisa-cinque-terre]] |
Where the day goes
- Pisa airport
Your driver follows the flight and waits with your name on a tablet. Sixty minutes of waiting is included at airports, which matters more since the EU Entry/Exit System went fully live in April 2026.
- Pisa, Piazza dei Miracoli · 1h30 on the ground
Optional, and only worth it if the day is long enough. The car sets down on Via Cammeo or Via Andrea Pisano, about 500 meters from the piazza, on flat pavement with no steps.
- First village · 1h30 on the ground
Your choice. Riomaggiore is the quickest of the five from Pisa at 104.1 km (64.7 miles). Village centers are closed to traffic, so in four of the five the last stretch is on foot. Monterosso is the exception - we obtain the permits and drive in as far as Piazza Garibaldi.
- Second village · 1h30 on the ground
Your choice again. Riomaggiore and Manarola are 14 minutes apart by road; Vernazza and Monterosso are 34 minutes apart.
- Your accommodation
La Spezia, one of the villages, or back to Pisa. Tell us where the day ends when you ask for a quote.
A sample day
- 10:00Scheduled landing at Pisa. Your driver is tracking the flight, so the pickup moves with it.
- 11:00Out of the arrivals hall with the bags loaded. Passport control since April 2026 takes longer and is less predictable than it used to be, which is why the waiting allowance is an hour.
- 12:40The edge of Riomaggiore, on the free-flow floor of about 1 hour 40 minutes. Allow more in July and August.
- 14:10Back to the car and north to Manarola, about 14 minutes by road.
- 16:00On to La Spezia or to your apartment in the villages. Times above are illustrative rather than a schedule.
A sample day - times are illustrative.
What the price includes
- A car and driver for the agreed itinerary, up to 8 passengers
- Sixty minutes of waiting included at the airport, with your flight number tracked for delays and early arrivals
- A driver waiting with your name shown on a tablet
- A price agreed before you travel, which does not change unless you change the itinerary
- Luggage carried door to door, with no change of train and no platform to cross
- Italian, English and Russian spoken
- Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and American Express accepted
Not included
- Guiding. Your driver drives and knows the coast, but is not a licensed Italian tour guide and cannot guide you inside monuments. Licensed guides can be arranged on request
- The Cinque Terre Card, train fares and ferry tickets
- Meals and admissions
- The walk into each village, which is on foot for everyone and cannot be driven
Is this the right day for you?
As a one-way transfer from the airport this is straightforward and needs no minimum. As a day out from Pisa it needs eight hours or so, because the driving alone is roughly 1 hour 40 minutes each way before any stop, and that figure is a free-flow floor with no traffic in it. Two villages at an hour and a half each is another three hours on the ground. If you are already staying in La Spezia or in one of the villages, do not buy this day: the same two villages from La Spezia is about 1 hour 11 minutes of driving in total rather than three and a half hours, and you will get the mornings and evenings when the villages are quiet.
How long does it take from Pisa airport to each village?
These are computed times with no traffic in them. Read every one as a floor, not a promise, and add to them in July and August.
| From Pisa airport to | Distance | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Riomaggiore | 104.1 km (64.7 miles) | about 1 h 40 |
| Manarola | 105.5 km (65.6 miles) | about 1 h 40 |
| Monterosso | 114.4 km (71.1 miles) | about 1 h 45 |
| Vernazza | 115.4 km (71.7 miles) | about 1 h 55 |
| Corniglia | 115.8 km (71.9 miles) | about 2 h |
| La Spezia Centrale | 89.4 km (55.6 miles) | about 1 h 15 |
Corniglia is the slowest of the five even though it is the middle village: the road loops inland and climbs above it, and Vernazza’s last stretch is a narrow mountain spur where routing models are optimistic.
Which two villages should I choose?
Two is the right number: three is a long day, and five is 2 hours 36 minutes of driving before a single stop. The road between the villages is nothing like the map suggests, so the pairing decides how much of the day you spend in the car.
| Pair | Road time between | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Riomaggiore and Manarola | about 14 min | The efficient pair: a few hundred meters apart on the coast, reached from the same road, and the two closest to Pisa |
| Vernazza and Monterosso | about 34 min | Vernazza is the harbor everybody has seen; Monterosso has the only real beach and the flattest walking |
| Monterosso and Levanto | about 15 min | The quiet pair in high summer: Levanto is outside the park crowds |
| Anything with Corniglia | 14 to 22 min from its neighbors | Not on the water: 105 meters up, and the slowest to reach from anywhere. From the station the link is the Lardarina staircase, 33 flights and about 380 steps |
Is there a train from Pisa airport instead?
There is, and for one person with a backpack it is a perfectly good idea. For a family with cases it is a long afternoon. The timetable rather than an opinion:
- Direct trains from Pisa Centrale to Monterosso: five a day. All Intercity, departing 05:42, 08:55, 13:39, 13:47 and 17:42 on the weekday we checked.
- Direct trains to Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola or Riomaggiore: none. Not few. None.
- The midday hole is real. The last northbound service reaching La Spezia before midday left at 09:48; the next left at 11:57, a gap of 2 hours 9 minutes sitting exactly where a mid-morning arrival lands.
- The change at La Spezia is not level. Trains from Pisa arrived on platforms 1, 4, 5 or 6; the Cinque Terre Express left from platform 2 in sixteen of eighteen observed departures, so a platform change through the underpass is effectively unavoidable.
- PisaMover, the shuttle from the airport to Pisa Centrale, is 6.50 euro single with no discounts of any kind, every five to fifteen minutes from 06:00 to midnight.
- The Cinque Terre supplement is payable on top of the ordinary fare from outside the park: 3, 5 or 6 euro per adult by season band, and 1.50, 2.50 or 3 euro for a child aged 4 to 11.
A family of four standing in the Pisa arrivals hall at 13:30:
| PisaMover to Pisa Centrale | arrive about 13:50 |
| Regional train to La Spezia Centrale | 14:06, arriving 15:20 |
| Wait at La Spezia and cross the underpass with four cases | 35 to 60 minutes |
| Cinque Terre Express at 16:20 | Vernazza 16:40, Monterosso 16:45 |
| By train | In Monterosso between about 16:20 and 16:45 — three boardings, two changes, one underpass with the bags |
| By car, same start | Monterosso about 15:15 to 15:30, before loading time and before traffic |
So: the car saves roughly one to one and a half hours to Monterosso, and removes two changes and the underpass with the luggage. It does not save you four hours. Anyone who says it does is hoping you will not check.
On cost, one checkable floor: four PisaMover tickets is 26.00 euro, and a mid-band supplement for two adults and two children is 15.00 euro. That is 41.00 euro before a single base train fare. The base fare itself we leave out: the quotes we have found for it vary too widely to print one.
Where will my driver meet me at Pisa airport?
With your name on a tablet, and with your flight already being followed, so the pickup moves with the aircraft rather than against it. Sixty minutes of waiting is included at airports, and fifteen minutes everywhere else.
What we will not claim is a right we do not have. Arrival halls are controlled space, and in March 2026 an announcement of reserved loading stalls for private-hire cars at Pisa was publicly denied by the airport operator. So the meeting point is confirmed in writing with your quote, against your flight number and terminal, rather than described here as something grander than it is.
How long will passport control take now?
Longer than it used to, and less predictably. We will not put a number on it, because nobody publishes one. The EU Entry/Exit System has been in full operation since 10 April 2026: every non-EU visitor is fingerprinted and photographed at the border in place of a passport stamp, and the gap between wheels-down and the arrivals hall has stretched. Which is why flight tracking and a full hour of waiting matter rather than being marketing.
Why do other sites say Pisa is 63 km from La Spezia?
Because 63 to 66 km is the straight line. The road distance is 89.4 km, or 55.6 miles, and the free-flow driving time is about 75 minutes. The straight-line figure has been copied from site to site for years, usually with a drive time of 56 minutes attached, and it is how an hour-and-a-quarter transfer gets sold as an hour.
Where does the car stop in each village?
At the edge, with one exception. All five village centers are inside a restricted traffic zone with a pedestrian area inside it, most in force 24 hours a day, so in four of them the last 150 to 600 meters is on foot however you arrive. Where the restriction begins in each of those four, village by village, is set out on the Cinque Terre page.
Monterosso al Mare is the exception. We obtain the permits for that comune and drive into the village as far as Piazza Garibaldi, and we can move along the seafront, so the car sets you down in the middle of the village rather than outside it. It is the only one of the five where that is the case, and where we hold no permit we do not drive in.
Can we stop in Pisa on the way?
Yes, and it is one of the better uses of a transfer day. The car sets down on Via Cammeo or Via Andrea Pisano, about 500 meters from the Piazza dei Miracoli: five to seven minutes on flat pavement, with no steps. Coaches cannot use Via Cammeo at all and are sent to the free park on Via Pietrasantina about 2 km out, so the same stop costs a coach party a shuttle at each end.
Can you take us back to Pisa at the end of the trip?
Yes, and booking both directions at once is usually the better idea. Tell us the flight number, the terminal and how many bags. The same car does plain transfers in either direction, long-distance ones included, with no stops and no tour attached.
What does this include, and what do I pay for myself?
A car and driver for the agreed itinerary, up to 8 passengers, the flight tracked, and the first hour of waiting at the airport. The price is agreed before you travel and does not change unless you change the itinerary. A quote comes back within 24 hours. We take Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and American Express, in euro.
You pay for your own Cinque Terre Card, train and ferry tickets, meals and admissions. What a given price covers, and the cancellation terms that go with it, are confirmed in writing with the quote before anything is booked.
Questions about this trip
How long does it take from Pisa airport to the Cinque Terre?
Roughly 1 hour 40 minutes to Riomaggiore, and up to about 2 hours to Corniglia. Those figures are computed with no traffic in them, so treat every one as a floor rather than a promise, and allow noticeably more on a July or August afternoon. Riomaggiore and Manarola are the quickest of the five to reach; Corniglia is the slowest.
Which two villages should we choose?
Riomaggiore and Manarola if you want the efficient pair. They are 14 minutes apart by road and both are reached from the same road, so you spend the day in the villages rather than in the car. Vernazza and Monterosso are 34 minutes apart and make a slower, prettier pairing. Monterosso and Levanto are 15 minutes apart and much quieter in August.
Is there a train from Pisa airport to the Cinque Terre?
There is no direct train at all to four of the five villages. Monterosso has five direct Intercity trains a day from Pisa Centrale; Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore have none. Everything else means the PisaMover to Pisa Centrale, a regional train to La Spezia, and a change to the Cinque Terre Express, usually across the underpass with your luggage.
Where will the driver meet us at the airport?
In the arrivals area, with your name shown on a tablet rather than a paper sign, and with your flight already tracked. Sixty minutes of waiting is included at airports, and it is included precisely because arrival halls are unpredictable. Give us the flight number when you book and tell us if anyone in the party needs a hand with the bags.
Why do other sites say Pisa is only 63 km away?
Because 63 to 66 km is the straight line, not the road. The road distance from Pisa airport to La Spezia is 89.4 km (55.6 miles) and takes about 75 minutes with no traffic. Sites that quote 63 km and 56 minutes are quoting a distance a car cannot drive, which is also why nobody should promise you a one-hour transfer.
Can you stop in Pisa on the way?
Yes, and the stop is short and efficient if the day allows it. The car sets down on Via Cammeo or Via Andrea Pisano, about 500 meters from the Piazza dei Miracoli, five to seven minutes on flat pavement with no steps. Coaches cannot use Via Cammeo at all. Ninety minutes covers the piazza, the photograph and a coffee. Add it to your quote request so the timing is agreed rather than improvised.
Can you take us back to Pisa at the end of the trip?
Yes, and it is worth booking the return at the same time as the outward trip. For an early flight we will want the departure time and the terminal, and we will build the run backwards from your check-in rather than forwards from your hotel. The price is agreed in advance and does not change unless you change the itinerary.
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