Transportation for sight seeing in Cinque Terre?

Once you reach the Cinque Terre, I recommend that you travel by boat between the towns weather permitting. Last year, an all day pass on the boats was 24 Euros.

When we were in the Cinque Terre we hike, take the train or hire a water taxi between towns. The train visits all 5 villages a few minutes apart.

All five are also served by train, which now runs about every half hour between them, and connections to the larger cities about hourly. It's a regular, regional train of the national railway system, www.trenitalia.com. Just request schedules to or from the city you want to visit, such as Vernazza, etc. If you stay a couple of nights, you can see all five towns pretty well. See also https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy/italian-riviera or lots of detail in Rick Steve's relevant guidebooks.

Car would be a big hassle in Cinque Terre towns. You can walk (hike) between towns or go by train or boat. For scenery boat is better. The most of way by train is in tunnels. In 3 days you can sightsee all 5 towns. They are all very picturesque. Hard to say which one is the most scenic but if I have to then Rick Steves and myself vote for Vernazza.

As advised, boat, foot and train are your options for getting between the villages, and train is the most efficient way to get there as well. But a caution? If you're planning on staying in that area for a night or two, finding an accommodation at this late date may be a challenge. I would get all over a reservation ASAP, and look at Levanto or La Spezia if you can't find anything in any of the five.

For taking in the CT scenery, your own two feet and the boats are best. You don't see much from the trains. For most efficient, sweat-free travel between the villages, take the trains. All five are worth the time if you have it to spend.

For the Cinque Terre, the best way to see the towns is to hike in between--time permitting. It doesn't seem like you have all the time to leisurely hike between the towns, so I suggest upon arrival into one of the towns, purchasing the train/hiking pass (from what I remember it's not more than 16-20 USD per day) and that can give you unlimited access to the train that runs between each town until midnight. No towns are more than 5 minutes away from each other via train, so it's an efficient way to get around.

As for the best towns, all are unique in their own way. You can't go wrong with any of them, but Vernazza is stunning, especially to get "lost" in. If you're looking for a quick dip in the water, Manarola has some of the best grottos and small cliffs to jump off of, a personal favorite. Monterosso is great for relaxing at the beach but there's limited space in the "free" portion of the beach, so you may have to purchase an umbrella (but hey it's a European experience, do it!)

Whatever you do, eat seafood at any place and get a gelato and just take in the scenery and feel the relaxed energy. Have the best time!

paige,

Some additional information.....

You're correct that only local vehicles are allowed in the five Cinque Terre towns. Only Monterosso provides reasonably good parking, with lots both in the "new town" and the "old town". The best option to "explore the small Cinque Terre towns" is to use local transportation, either train or boat.

The easiest method to get to the C.T. is train from Florence. There will usually be one or two changes at Pisa Centrale and/or La Spezia Centrale, so you'll need to be familiar with changing trains. Have you travelled by train in Italy before? There are a few "caveats" to be aware of.

The easiest and quickest way to get from one town to another is the frequent local trains, as the trip from one town to the next is only about five minutes in each case. There's also the Ferry which stops at all the towns except Corniglia, but that takes longer. The Ferry also goes to Porto Venere, which is a nice day trip. The Ferries don't operate if the weather is bad.

If you wish to do some hiking, note that only two of the four segments of the popular Sentiero Azzurro trails are open. The famous Via dell' Amore (which is an easy stroll) will remain closed this year, so that won't be an option. The two open sections have some challenging sections, so if you're not used to hiking you may want to stick with the trains. There's an extensive network of other trails in the area, but many of the others go further up in the hills so are a more strenuous hike.

Were you planning to stay in Genova? If you can find accommodation in the C.T. at this late date, you may want to spend the three days in the Cinque Terre. It's easily possible to get from there to Nice (about 6 hours by train as I recall). If you can't find a vacancy in any of the five towns you could also try Levanto, which is only about five minutes by train from Monterosso.

Regarding "the best towns for sightseeing", the usual method is to stay in one of the towns and see all of them. That can be done in a day, although 2-3 days would be better. Which town to stay in is mostly a matter of personal preference, and each of us here has a favourite. I prefer Monterosso, which is the largest of the five and therefore has the greatest number of hotels, restaurants and other tourist amenities. Monterosso has the only "conventional" hotels (ie: elevators and that sort of thing), while the other towns mostly have small rooms, and breakfast may or may not be provided with the room.

Public transportation in the Cinque Terre is the reasonable choice, lots of good advice from earlier posters. I would also recommend looking at using the train from Florence to the CT. If you need a car to get to Genoa, rent it after CT. Keep in mind that many rental cars are manual transmission and do make sure to have a navigation device. Portable wifi rented with the car worked great for us.