Cinque Terre Shore Excursions from Livorno Port

Driver arrived on time at Port and was very friendly, introduced himself individually to us all. Spoke very good English. We told him that we would prefer the beach in the return rather than Pisa as we'd all seen Pisa before....the descriptive said we had this option yet the driver said there wouldn't be time, only time for a quick visit to Pisa...so our first disappointment. We got in the vehicle, very clean and air conditioned, no water, yet the day before when we were in Rome, also booked through Viator, the driver had water for us. Anyway moving on he drove to our first of five villages, what we didn't know was that our first leg of the trip would take nearly 2 hours !!! When we got to the first village the views were breathtaking and we had a guided walk around and up to the church, take good walking shoes with you as it's all uneven, slight incline but nothing major, I've a weak right knee and I was ok. A point to make, have some coins with you for the toilets, it's a strange system, you put money in machine and that opens the appropriate numbered door...anyway moving onto the second village, again lovely scenery and breathtaking views, next village we asked could we stop for a bit of lunch, driver took us to a pizza takeaway, we wanted a sit down, anyway eventually found one suitable. All boarded the vehicle for the next round of the trip and we asked about the boat trip, driver said wasn't really in the schedule !!!! We questioned this and showed him the description, anyway he took us to pick the ferry up......over another hour in the vehicle !!!!! By this time we were fed up of being in the van and glad to get out for some alternative transportation.....boarded the ferry and went along the coastline, he did say slight incline after the steps and he would meet us at the top....road pedestrianised. Well after getting off the boat, we climbed and climbed and climbed, only then to hit the Main Street leading up to the van.....it was an absolute nightmare, I was ready for collapsing one hundred metres from where our driver was. Even people in our part who are extremely fit found the incline very difficult, especially in those extreme temperatures....and had to go and get the driver to reverse to enable me to get into the van, after that we were taken back to the ship. A lot of money, was it worth it, no it wasn't and the descriptive needs to expand more on how much time your actually in a vehicle and those affected by motion sickness as it's all windy bendy roads, there's no escape. Yes we did see beautiful scenery and got lovely views over the sea and in the villages but was it worth the long long drive, in my opinion no it wasn't, but that's a matter of opinion. None of our party realised how long the travelling was and we had two children with us too a better option would have been to take us to the first village and let us take the boat from there, calling at each village at our leisure with the option of either Pisa or The Beach, we all had our beach stuff with us and the children were looking forward to that, which never happened. Not the drivers fault as he's only following instructions from the company he works for but really the description needs re wording so people are fully aware of what they are going to get.

I highly recommend this tour. We had Leonardo as our tour guide and he was amazing. Our boat ended up having to do our itinerary backwards because of weather and this excursion ended up landing on Christmas Day. We called and Leonardo still came out on Christmas day to tour us around. We could not have been more grateful for this. This tour was personalized to what we wanted to do. Leonardo walked with us everywhere we went and gave us the history behind everything we saw. I would highly recommend booking with Leonardo and if I am ever back in the area he will be my first choice!

This tour was excellent for the sight seeing and boat trip. We experienced it all - walking, boat trip and train trip. Leonardo was a really good guide - always there to answer questions without being intrusive. Free time in Pisa on the way back to the ship broke the return trip nicely. The hill climb back to the car was hard but we made it and it was an experience!