What are the best ways to travel to the Republic of San Marino while in Italy?

Question

While in Italy I want to vist both San Marino and Cinque Terre and then end up in Tuscany. I will be arriving in Venice. Should I take the train to San Marino first? Then train up to Cinque Terre? Or would it be better to train to Cinque Terre first? I want to be the most efficient with my time. Any suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Answer 1

To get to San Marino, you need to take the train to Rimini and then catch a bus from the train station to San Marino. The bus schedule is here: http://www.cgi-bus.it/bonellibus/ - the site is in Italian, but you can find the schedule by clicking on Autolinee locali, and then selecting the link Rimini - San Marino. If you select the Rimini link under excursions, you will only see the buses that leave from the beach area, not the ones from the train station. You can buy a ticket from the driver - it's around 7 euro round trip. This is one of the few places here that I've always driven to rather than taking public transportation.

Rimini to Monterosso in Cinque Terre takes between 5 and 7 hours with at least one train change. The best options are the 4:09 pm and 4:20 pm trains with a change in Bologna or Modena, respectively. There are a lot of other choices though.

You can check specific train schedules and prices here: http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html

Note that there is a San Marino in the Italian train website - however, this is a town on the train line between Trento and Venice and NOT the Rebublic of San Marino.