TRAINS & CARD
The Train and the Cinque Terre Card
One little train links all five villages every few minutes. Here is how the Cinque Terre Express and the park's Trekking and Treno cards actually work.
Check dates and availability ↗The little train that ties it together
The single most useful fact about visiting the Cinque Terre is that a local train connects all five villages, running along the coast between La Spezia and Levanto and ducking in and out of tunnels in the cliff. Branded the Cinque Terre Express, it goes roughly every fifteen to thirty minutes in high season and about hourly in winter, and the hops are tiny — La Spezia to Riomaggiore is around seven minutes, and you are rarely more than a few minutes from the next village. This is why cars are pointless here and why independent visits are so easy: you can village-hop all day on a train that comes past far more often than most city metros.
How to actually ride it
Using the line is simple once you know the shape of it. Trains run in two directions — think of it as "towards La Spezia" or "towards Levanto/Genoa" rather than by village name — so check the direction on the platform board, since the villages are just intermediate stops. Services can be a few minutes late and platforms get crowded in summer, so give yourself margin. If you are riding on ordinary regional tickets rather than a park card, remember that paper tickets generally need validating before you board; the details of validation change over time, so read the machine or app instructions on the day. Keep whatever ticket or card you are using to hand — it is checked.
What the Cinque Terre Card is
The Cinque Terre Card is the national park's own pass, and it comes in two main shapes. The Trekking Card covers access to the park's marked trails plus a bundle of extras like park buses and Wi-Fi. The Treno (train) Card includes all of that and adds unlimited regional train travel along the Levanto–La Spezia line, so you can hop on and off the villages at will. Both are day cards — one, two or three days — sold by the park online or at its info points at the stations, and both are personalised: you write the holder's name on the back and carry ID. They are the park's product, not a tour ticket, and no third party needs to sell them to you.
Which card, if any, you need
The honest decision tree is short. If you are only wandering the villages and not walking the marked trails, you may need no card at all — buy point-to-point train tickets as you go and you are done. If you plan to hop between villages by train several times in a day, the Treno Card usually pays for itself and saves you queuing for tickets each time. If you intend to walk the coastal Blue Trail sections, you need a card regardless, because trail access requires it. Only you can price it, since it depends on how many train hops and trail legs you will actually do — but for a full, active day using both trains and paths, the Treno Card is normally the simplest buy.
Booking the Via dell'Amore with your card
One wrinkle sits inside the card system: the Via dell'Amore, the easy cliff path from Riomaggiore to Manarola, runs on timed half-hour slots even though, from 2026, its access is folded into the standard Cinque Terre Card rather than costing a separate supplement. In practice that means you still reserve a slot — the park recommends doing it online at the moment you buy the card, rather than turning up and hoping — and you carry ID to show at the entrance with the card. If you read an older page describing a separate "Via dell'Amore ticket" or a "Plus" card, treat it as out of date and check the park's current information.
Cards versus buying as you go
It is worth saying plainly that the card is not compulsory for a good day. Plenty of visitors simply buy regional train tickets between the villages, skip the marked trails or stick to routes that do not require a card, and spend nothing on a pass at all. The card wins when you are doing a lot — many train hops, one or more trail sections, the park buses up to Corniglia or the high villages — because it bundles those and removes repeated ticket-buying. The card loses when your day is gentle: two villages, a boat, a long lunch. Work out roughly what your day looks like first, then buy the pass that matches it, not the other way round.