Cinque Terra

We stayed at Lercari Suites because of the balcony - which was to die for ! We sat outside every morning with coffee and every night with our wine and basked in the beauty around us !

However, there are 200 steps to get there. With a 21" carry on, it is no problem.

On our first trip, we stayed on the square, but it was a bit noisy. It was hard to leave the windows open when the restaurants don't slow down until the wee hours of the morning. Here, we were able to keep the windows open !

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In general, the first listing of a group in Rick's book is his favorite. But to choose a place specifically with balcony and view, and to compare some significant trade-offs of location, stairs, and price, you should read through all the listings. At many hotels, there are rooms with and without certain amenities. Any of the five towns is fine to stay in. I like Manarola for its smallness, but it can also make sense to choose Monterosso for its larger selection of services, for instance. Hilltop Corniglia takes a little longer to get to and from.

I see from reading your information

If you mean you have seen various threads here on the Forums, fine. If you mean that you have read Rick Steves' books or videos, and that you expect to hear from Rick Steves, be aware that these Forums are hosted at the Rick Steves website and one of his employees is the webmaster, by Rick neither reads nor answers here. We are all fellow travelers who share but not employees, except for Laura, above, who answers on behalf of the company.

Yay for Laura. :O)

We stayed here at this AirBnB, before it was an Air BnB, and if you want terrace and ocean view, well, it's definitely here. Here's the thing, as you can see, it's up high, really high. It's a few minutes further walk from the same family's restaurant. Lot's of steps up the side of the hill, off the main drag in Vernazza you go up via Carratino, and up, and up. We loved it there, though my wife was not prepared to carry her single bag up the hill, I made two round trips when we got there and it was a decent workout, well worth it. The same host has three other apartments, also listed on Air. The restaurant was good, and very convenient.

Here's their main page: http://www.camerelatorre.com/index2.html

If you decide to stay at Monterosso then I would recommend the Porto Roca. We stayed here in May of this year and it is fabulous and the ocean views are amazing.

To the OP, I am not sure a place exists in the town of Vernazza with a balcony to sit outside with a nice sea view that does not also have countless steps likely winding in narrow passages.
Fine for many but not all and so many people book based on view without taking into consideration how to get your bags there.
Just wanted to make sure you were aware of this.

Rick is not answering your post anytime soon but you should be thankful Laura on his staff took the time to do so.

There are I would say limited options in each of the 5 towns so with a view being important I would not limit myself to just 1 town in my initial search and search all 5 towns on the popular websites and see what you like/find for your dates.

We also enjoyed Hotel Porta Roca. The food served in their dining room was exceptional as were the views of the sea from pur room and table. They have an aeea of the beach reserved for their hotel guests. They also paid for a taxi to bring us from the parking lot up to the hotel.

Great views from here:
http://www.elisabettacarro.it/