No point at all in buying before time, and if your flight is late that ticket becomes scrap paper. These are local regionale trains, so just buy at the station when you arrive. They are no cheaper buying in advance, and tickets don't sell out.

You'll need to go Florence to Pisa to La Spezia and then to the village of your choice. There are faster options between Pisa and La Spezia, but they only save you around 15 minutes. IMHO not worth the extra expense or the pre booking. Just use local trains and buy on the day.

Thank you, that is very helpful.

Do look up what will be your likely connections on www.trenitalia.com clicking the UK flag for English first and entering Firenze S. M. Novella to the precise village you are heading for and an 'hour' of departure e.g. '15' for 15.00 and (currrently) a date before June 15 as dates are not yet online.

The precise village matters, as the service pattern differs between villages. For example to Monterosso it is not necessarily what you have been told in earlier replies - the 16.26 departure has just one change in Pisa, and uses an Intercity train with reserved seats from there which will be well worth the extra money over connections using solely regional trains and requiring an extra change.

Thank you perilizia...

Going from Florence to La Spezia. We are staying in La Spezia. So: Firenze S. M. Movella to Le Spezia Centrale. I chose 5/21 as the date as we will be traveling on a Wednesday in June. The only selection that appears to work in the "search on" pulldown is Tutti i Treni, I assume that is the way it is supposed to be?

One more important question please... how far is the Florence Airport from the railway station in Florence? We are arriving at 3:30p on a Wednesday and it appears the last train leaves at 15:53... could that be correct? Sounds like we have a problem... or since it is summer would they be running more trains?

Or.. do I now need to reserve a rental car? I know parking is difficult in Cinque Terre so I was hoping not to have a car, though it seems better in La Spezia.

Thank you, I'm glad you asked for more info! I don't see any other options

Last train on your chosen date leaves at 9:28pm. You need to click on the "next solution" link at the bottom RH corner of the timetable to see the later trains.

If you use the Trenitalia website in English by clicking the UK flag at top right, there is no need to click 'tutti i treni' as this is the default option on the English language version.

For later trains you can click 'next solution' as suggested, or set your 'hour' of departure by entering '15' for 15.00 which will then start your train times at an appropriate time.

Thank you again, I am not sure how I missed that!

As soon as I wrote that.. I just went back to the site and tried to double check, but now can't seem to get the schedule to show up. The train station in Le Spezia is called "Le Spezia Centrale" I believe... but I can't get it to show up in the destination field. How strange, as it worked the other day. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, any idea?

Le vs. La. Now I really feel stupid...