Travel from Venice to Genoa

So I was wondering, in both ancient and medieval times, what was the more efficient, cheap, and quick way to travel from Venice to Genoa or vice versa? Is it by sea down the Adriatic, around the Italian boot, and then up the Tyrrhenian Sea? Or is it up the Padus valley (very gentle, easy travel), then across the Apennines/Alpine foothills (very hard, difficult travel), then down into Genoa?

What's the time difference in ancient and medieval times, and what's the safety/cost difference? Let's say late Republican times, when roads were developed and very few barbarian tribes plagued Italian Gaul; and medieval times during which there was no war on land or on sea.
 
So I was wondering, in both ancient and medieval times, what was the more efficient, cheap, and quick way to travel from Venice to Genoa or vice versa? Is it by sea down the Adriatic, around the Italian boot, and then up the Tyrrhenian Sea? Or is it up the Padus valley (very gentle, easy travel), then across the Apennines/Alpine foothills (very hard, difficult travel), then down into Genoa?

What's the time difference in ancient and medieval times, and what's the safety/cost difference? Let's say late Republican times, when roads were developed and very few barbarian tribes plagued Italian Gaul; and medieval times during which there was no war on land or on sea.

Depends on the motivation! Genoa and Venice didn't play nice together, so I would say that in war at least, travel by sea was preferred. :D

There was significant trade up and down the Po river valley, of course, and if I remember correctly, trade and pilgrimage routes over the Appenines via Milano/Allesandria.
 

Vitruvius

Donor
This site should give you a good idea for ancient/Imperial Roman times. With the caveat, of course, that Venice did not exist then. I ran it for Altinum-Genua and apparently the cheapest route is by sea, interestingly enough in January currents are such that it may have been easier to round Sicily that take the strait of Messina. The fastest was apparently a combination sea-land-sea route via Rimini-Florence-Pisa.

I would assume in early medieval times the safest by far would be by land given that the Saracens raided heavily in the mediterranean, attacking Rome and even establishing brief control in places like Bari on the Adriatic and Fraxinet in Province not to mention their eventual conquest of Sicily. Until they are checked by the rise of the organized states on the mainland and by the maritime republics on the sea, say by the 11th century or so, it would be safer and probably cheaper to go by land.
 
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