Loding for Cinque Terre 3-4 night stay and hiking 5 towns

Bonnie, To begin with, when are you planning to be in the Cinque Terre? It's usually highly advisable to get Hotel bookings WELL in advance. I often start looking for Hotels in March, for travel in September. Which of the 5 towns of CT are best to stay in will depend to some extent on your personal preferences and budget. If you want more of a "conventional" Hotel, then Monterosso is a good choice. It's the largest of the five towns, so has the greatest number of Hotels, restaurants and also the nicest sandy beach. Regarding the trails, at the present time ALL of the Sentiero Azzuro trails are open for hiking except the Manarola - Corniglia section (which has been closed for some time, but will hopefully reopen soon). It's easy to get around the closed portion by using the local train OR for the really devout hikers there are other trails that go further up into the hills. The Monterosso - Vernazza stretch is the most challenging, so start there and bring lots of water! Note that a Park Pass is required to hike any of the trails. There WILL be people checking at the start of each trail. You can purchase the Pass at T.I. offices, stations and the small booths at the start of each trail. There's also a Cinque Terre Treno card which provides the Park Pass as well as rail travel. Those are only available at T.I.'s, etc. I'd suggest having a look at the Italy 2012 guidebook to get some idea of the "character" of each of the towns. That may give you some idea on which one would best "fit" your preferences. Happy travels!

I just got back from 2 days in the CT. We stayed in Riomaggiore, and it was great. I also really liked Manarola. They are both small, cute, and steep. Vernazza is still undergoing re-construction, with about 50-60% of the town open for business, right now, and improving every day. Monterosso is flatter and larger than the others. It didn't quite have the same homey feel to me, but I was only there for an afternoon. I didn't make it to Corniglia. Honestly, it's probably hard to go wrong. They are all relatively small little towns, the trains and boats run frequently, and it's easy to get from one to another. If I was to go back, I'd probably pick Manarola, if only because I thought it was the cutest (by a slim margin), but they all seemed like they would make a decent base. My wife and I hike often in the Santa Cruz mountains, so I feel like we're in good hiking shape. I'm not sure if it was the weather (it was really hot) or the elevation change, but the hike from Vernazza to Monterosso was pretty challenging and we were both wiped out by the end of it. Luckily you can jump right into the ocean to cool off at the end. Also, the trail from Manarola to Corniglia had 2 pretty substantial landslides go over it (that you can see from ferry boat), so I don't think that's going to be open anytime soon.

Thank you for your input. Anyone familiar with apts in Manarola? We are planning a mid Sept visit and plan to hike as many of the trails as possible, but also would like to see the more conventional tourist sites as well.

I don't know about accommodations in Manarola, but in June 2011 we stayed at Sole Terre Mare in Corniglia. The apartments were lovely and air conditioned. We originally wanted to stay in Monterosso, but couldn't get any place there to respond to email inquiries. We fell in love with Corniglia too and would stay there again.