Leave in 2 days. Got notice today Oceania changed La Spezia to Portovenere. Help

[jascarb]

We are in port from 1:00-6:00, such a short amount of time to begin with. We were to dock in La Spezia and with the train schedules it equaled about 2 hours we'd have in one town or we could do the "love walk" and that is about it before we have to head back. Not much, but enough to go have lunch in Vernazza and walk around.

 

I got news today that they changed it to where we are docking in Portovenere. From what I can tell so far, it looks like we would need to take a bus from Portovenere to La Spezia first then continue as we had planned. That is just going to eat more time and I haven't even found the buss schedules yet. Who knows how much time this will add onto our journey. Alternative is ferry service from Portovenere but the ferry I found that goes to the Cinque Terre towns has a last boat at noon, which won't work. Maybe there is another one that I am missing???

 

We leave in 2 days and I have gobs of things I need to be doing so I have zero time to be messing with this. I've just scraped the surface but it looks to me like it is pretty unrealistic to try to do the Cinque Terre from Portovenere in such a short amount of time. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

If I am missing something here (direct train perhaps??) then please correct me. We also stop in portofino and I had heard some people doing the Cinque Terre from Portofino but does that mean that I would need to decide between Portofino and the Cinque Terre? I already have a leisurely day and lunch at Hotel Splendido planned so don't want to give up a full day there.

 

Any info you can give me would be helpful. Thanks!

[grandbanksguy]

We are in port from 1:00-6:00, such a short amount of time to begin with. We were to dock in La Spezia and with the train schedules it equaled about 2 hours we'd have in one town or we could do the "love walk" and that is about it before we have to head back. Not much, but enough to go have lunch in Vernazza and walk around.

 

I got news today that they changed it to where we are docking in Portovenere. From what I can tell so far, it looks like we would need to take a bus from Portovenere to La Spezia first then continue as we had planned. That is just going to eat more time and I haven't even found the buss schedules yet. Who knows how much time this will add onto our journey. Alternative is ferry service from Portovenere but the ferry I found that goes to the Cinque Terre towns has a last boat at noon, which won't work. Maybe there is another one that I am missing???

 

We leave in 2 days and I have gobs of things I need to be doing so I have zero time to be messing with this. I've just scraped the surface but it looks to me like it is pretty unrealistic to try to do the Cinque Terre from Portovenere in such a short amount of time. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

If I am missing something here (direct train perhaps??) then please correct me. We also stop in portofino and I had heard some people doing the Cinque Terre from Portofino but does that mean that I would need to decide between Portofino and the Cinque Terre? I already have a leisurely day and lunch at Hotel Splendido planned so don't want to give up a full day there.

 

Any info you can give me would be helpful. Thanks!

 

 

Portovenere is a world heritage site, and from what we have heard is quite wonderful to visit. We tried to get there by passenger ferry from Cinque Terre, but the boats weren’t running due to rough seas, which is quite common. Getting to Cinque Terre from Portofino is quite easy. There is a shuttle bus to S. Margherita station that takes about 20 min, and then about an hour to Vernazza.

[CintiPam]

The ferry schedule states, right below the 9, 10, 11 and noon departures, that there are afternoon ferry boat departures from Portovenere to the CT at 2:15 PM and 3 PM as well.

 

Take another look at the website.

[CintiPam]

Hi again, I found the actual ferry schedule on one of the private tour company's websites, that of Papillon. (I vaguely remembered they included this from when I was researching for our cruise last month.) I was unable to copy the schedule but here's the link:

 

http://www.papillonservice.com/tours_cinqueterre.html.

 

If this gets cleansed, just google "papillonservice" and go to their CT tour description page, which includes a copy of the ferry schedule.

 

There definitely are afternoon ferries from Portovenere to the various CT towns and back.

 

Hope this helps and bon voyage!

 

Pam

[cruiseluv]

Hi,

 

We just got back from Portovenere and visiting the CT from there. Portovenere is fabulous, I am so glad we stayed there rather than at one of the CT. However, the CT are really cute and visiting them by ferry service ( battelli) is the best way to approach them, much more spectatcular than by train from La Spezia.

 

There is a 2:15, 3:00, 4:00, 5:30 from Portovenere to CT. Back from Riomaggiore to PV there are ferries at 3:10, 3:40, 4;40, 5:40. Between Riomaggiore and PV is approx 20 mins.

 

I suggest you have an early lunch onboard and then try for the 2:15 ferry. You could get off at Manarola, walk the Via dell'Amore to Riomaggiore, and catch the 4:40 from there to PV.

It is a shame you don't have a full day there. We just loved our 3 days there and can't wait to go back.

 

Enjoy!

[nparmelee]

Portovenere is worth the time all by itself. We stopped here before going to the Cinque Terre in May. As others have said, you can also take the ferry up to Minarola if you really must do the walk between Minarola and Riomaggiore. We had enough time to do the hike between Monterosso and Vernazza and then between a few of the other villages. The via dell'amore is nice, but not the most exciting part of the Cinque Terre, I'd prefer to spend time in the different villages instead of the 15-20 minutes that walk takes (mostly slow because its crowded). If the seas are at all rough, the ferry may not run or could be quite exciting to get on and off of. We found the ferry ran a bit late.

 

La Spezia would not have been a dock, it would have been a tender.