Cinque Terre

Generally I think Corniglia is less crowded because it is a little more difficult to get to but it is also smaller and potentially less interesting. Monterosso is the largest so may be able to handle the crowds better. Going in late September will help, but crowds are very dependent on the cruise ships in the nearby ports. When the cruise ships go away it calms down in all towns in the evenings and mornings,

We stayed in Levanto. It is north of the five towns that make up the Cinque Terra (of course), but easily accessible by train. In fact, it is about a ten minute ride from Monterosso. It is a much calmer, less touristy, sweet little town and a great way to escape the CT crowds. BTW, we were there in late September, and everything was really crowded. However, once you get away from the main drag, it wasn't too bad.

Another vote for staying in Levanto. We stayed there on the RS Village Italy Tour.
At the train station, we bought a 1 day train ticket and also the ticket/pass to hike on some
of the trails.
Levanto also has a nice sandy beach - good for swimming.

bob,

The crowds should be thinning out by late September, so that may not be as much of a problem at that time of year. As someone else mentioned, the crowds are less of a problem off the main streets in the towns.

I prefer staying in Monterosso as it's the largest of the five and has the greatest number of accommodations, restaurants and other amenities, as well as the best beaches. Whichever town you decide to stay in, it would be a good idea to get rooms booked fairly soon.

We stayed in Monterosso in May (assuming it might be similar to Sept for shoulder season crowds) and our main issues with tourists during that time was the cruise ship tourists that came in during the day and they were in all of the towns at various times, since they're bustling from town to town. Once they're gone for the day, we thought Monterosso wasn't that crazy and appreciated that it had more shops/restaurants (and we also liked reading a book on the beach for an hour or so before dinner). We stayed at the Hotel Colonnina, which we got from the RS book.

Thanks for all the tips. Now I'm thinking just stay in one of the 5 villages and get our hiking/touring /photography done in the AM and PM, lay low mid-day. Are there days when the cruise ship folks don't visit CT? Also any other hotel/room suggestions (other than Hotel Colonnina-thanks), reasonably priced, say under $125/night?

I was wondering the same
thing--are there days when the cruise ships do not port in CT? We'll be there this June.

You can search for websites that show cruise ship schedules for a certain port, but there is no specific day of the week that they don't come. I was on a smaller, 200 passenger, cruise and when I mentioned those websites to the crew, they laughed and said those websites were incredibly inaccurate. At least inaccurate for that particular smaller ship, maybe they are better with the larger cruise lines.

Here is one such site for La Spezia:
http://www.cruisemapper.com/ports/la-spezia-port-160

We went Early October and must have missed the crowds. I see these pictures of Manarola just packed with people and that was not our experience at all. We purchased cones of fish and chips from one of the street vendors, walked down to a sitting area overlooking the ocean and ate our wonderful lunch and we were with about 10 other people enjoying the view. Then we walked up the walking path and passed about 6 other people on the way up. We felt like we had the place to ourselves. At the time I had no idea how crowded it could get. We stayed in Monterosso and it was not crowded at all.

Based solely on my own experience, I think it's impossible to predict the ebbs and flows of the tourist tide. Like you, I didn't want to go to CT because of the crowds. My friends insisted though, and in the middle of July last year, four of us spent 4 nights/3.5 days there. On a dozen train trips within the CT, we got the one set of four seats facing each other in a carriage every single time. We got a table at every single restaurant we went to without advance reservations. We rented beach chairs on the spot, no reservations, on the first Monterosso beach we picked. Every night, we watched the sunset from the gorgeous cliff top bar in Riomaggiore with only a handful of others. Our time there was really unexpectedly wonderful. I had had visions of train pushers to squeeze people on like in Japan, but it wasn't so. Clearly, your mileage may vary. I have no idea why it was so peaceful at the height of the season. But that was true throughout my 7-week/multi-region 2016 trip, so maybe enough people stayed home due to terrorist fears last year to make a real difference in the crowds. (Except at the Vatican - that was crowded.) Long story just to say it's hard to plan to avoid the crowds. But you might get lucky, and it is a magical place. Worth a try.

P.S. Avoid the much-hyped Ristorante da Billy in Manarola. Below-average food and horrible service. One of the few really disappointing meals we had. Their success has gone to their head and their pocketbook.

Corniglia is definitely the quietest of the 5 towns, with that said it is not so swimmer friendly and there are many steps to the beach (rocks). We didn't love Monterosso as it was by far the busiest and was not nearly as beautiful as the others. Our favourites were Vernazza and Riomaggiore (great food here), and our absolute favourite (which was not part of the 5 towns) was Porto Venere. We stayed in the hills in a beautiful town called Biassa, but transport is required to access Riomaggiore and the other towns from there. It was a breathtaking 10 minute drive every day and though we would have loved to stay in one of the 5 towns it was much less expensive and very quiet and relaxing.
I would recommend looking into Porto Venere accommodations! if we were to go back we would 100% stay there and take the ferry or drive into the other towns (as it can't be accessed by train).

get our hiking/touring /photography done in the AM and PM, lay low mid-day

Generally the Cruise crowd are not hiking, so if you can plan a long hike during the middle of the day, that may work.

We settled on Manarola, booked 3 nights at Aria di Mare. They have four rooms each with a terrace overlooking town and the ocean, up a steep hill in a residential neighborhood. We'll be there the 3rd week in September and we'll take our chances with the cruise ship folks. Anyone know of this place? It might be associated with Trattoria dal Billy, which one of you didn't like.

upcoming trip to CT...try Air bnb...staying in Vernazza (RS recommended of the 5), for 80e...

I think a few photos of packed like sardine tourists have people now over-exaggerating the level of crowds in the Cinque Terre.
Much like the processed professionally photographs of the cliffside towns are sending folks there in record numbers in the past few years.
Photograph is not always the most accurate representation of the truth.

Experienced that once crowd level once, but it was because a delay caused none of the local trains to run for a few scheduled times. As a result the next train that came was already full as was the platform for folks wanting to get on. Very chaotic indeed but was an isolated innocent due to delays not overcrowding.

I don't think you will find it more crowded than any of the other big tourist spots, I find Venice, Rome, Florence, you name it place in Italy as crowded or more crowded than the Cinque Terre.
It is just a small area so if the crowds from the day are all on the main street headed toward the water in Vernazza or all on a train platform ; things can get crazy.

The crowds I thought were easy to escape, each town only has one road/passage way that gets crowded the others are mostly empty at all times.
In the residential areas of Manarola there are numerous spots with a nice sea view which hardly ever one tourist not staying in a nearby room would ever walk to and at night and early morning Manarola is very quiet and uncrowded.