Cinque Terre Itinerary Help

Riomaggiore and Manarola are lovely towns. (I have a picture of Riomaggiore on my wall at home - people are always oohing and aahing about it - "Where is THAT?".) But I'm not sure I'd want/need to spend the whole day just in both of the towns. You can explore them, have a meal - but what else? (In Riomaggiore, go up to the little town square near the school and just sit for a while. Not many tourists go up there. Sometimes you can hear the kids practicing music at the nearby school.)

I'd probably take the ferry to Portovenere (where I haven't been) and go from there.

Second day of hiking between Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso sounds fine - as long as you are prepared for that much hiking in a day. I'm sure I could do both , in a day, but I'd be tempted to split that hike up over two days (though I guess that means buying hiking passes for two days instead of one). Actually, I did split them over two days, just because I could, when I hiked.

Also keep an eye on the weather. You may still have hot days at the end of September (I did in early October), but be flexible enough to switch things up if one day is supposed to be rainy - obviously you wouldn't want to hike on that day.

Frank Z,

You should certainly be able to take the Ferry to Porto Venere, have a brief look around and then explore the five towns from Riomaggiore (using the local trains). Check the weather report before making the trip. If it looks like the weather might change in the afternoon, use "Plan B" and take the train to Riomaggiore. If it should happen that you get stuck in Porto Venere, it's not really a huge problem. Once you get to the station in La Spezia, the train ride to Riomaggiore is only about 9 minutes.

Your plan to hike from Monterosso to Vernazza and then on to Corniglia sounds fine. As well as looking around Vernazza, stop for a fine hot meal in one of the restaurants in the harbour area. While some parts of the hike can be strenuous, it's not really a difficult hike. Note that a Park Pass is required to hike those trails, and those are easily obtainable at local stations or even in the small booths at the beginning of each trail. The first part of the trail from Monterosso involves a fairly steep climb so I find it best to do that segment first, when well rested. Be sure to take lots of water!

It can happen that morning boats run and some later boats get cancelled and that was the case on my last visit. But I heard it through the tourist grapevine (and think it was also reflected on signs) that the next departure would be the last one, so I was able to get on it.

Otherwise, the connection from Portovenere to La Spezia is by bus: See http://www.atcesercizio.it/index.php/en/ and https://www.porto-venere.com/en/how-to-get-to-portovenere. And then train from there, as Ken described.