travel to cinque terre, hotel reccommendations

For traveling to the CT from Florence, you most likely will be on Regionale trains for the entire journey. All trains from Florence to the CT will stop at Pisa. You have an opportunity to get off and visit the Leaning Tower. You'll give up a couple of hours on your way to the CT but many travelers do this. Simply buy tickets from Florence to Pisa and Pisa to your CT town. Regionale tickets are good for 60 days. No train information on these tickets. They are open tickets. No seat reservations permitted. Just validate the ticket at the little machine in the train station and get on. The Regionale trains cannot be sold out. Just don't validate your Pisa/CT tickets until you are ready to use them. The good news about stopping at Pisa is that there is a staffed left luggage facility at the train station. As you get off the train, turn right and walk down to the last two buildings on your left. Go between the two last buildings and you will see the facility. About 4Euro per bag but your luggage is stored securely behind a counter and you need your passport picture to get your luggage back (they make a photocopy of it). Quite safe. For hotel recommendations, check out the Rick Steves book. He has the best recommendations. Secondly, many smaller places in the CT do not have websites. Grandmotherly-like women are often at the train stations trying to get travelers to come and see their rental rooms. Posters have reported scoring great rooms with great views from these 2-3 room residences. Expect lots of narrow stairs.

Denise, In Vernazza, try: http://www.elisabettacarro.it/

Denise, In Vernazza, I stayed at Gianni Franzi and loved it! Each of their rooms are different. But most have great views. My room happened to overlook the main Square. The room was clean and the service was great. I would definitely stay there again. They also own the restaurant on the main square with the same name. Their restaurant was great as well. Tip: try the Petsto al Trofie!

We stayed in Monterosso at Il Locanda Maestrale http://www.locandamaestrale.net/index.htm and loved it. We were there in 2003 and 2010 and we are going back this September for our third stay. Great location, owners are wonderful, and the cappaccinos are fabulous for breakfast.

Thank you all for your reccommendations.

I stayed at the Birolli house for two nights. http://www.aclapartments.it/main.html It was just as advertised. Very honest owner. Water view (4 blocks away) from the top floor. The bedroom and bathroom are on the lower level and a small kitchen, table, sitting area and day bed are all in the upper floor. There are stairs! The town must be entered by walking a very steep road. There is a bus that runs on god knows what schedule so we walked. The apartment is a crazy three story exterior walk up. The two levels of living space are connected by a spiral staircase on the inside. To add to the security, there is a locked gate prior to the exterior stairs. The day we stayed the clothing washer didn't work. The owner apologized, said that it just broke, and I believed her. She gave us a small discount. She also left a bottle of wine for us. It was the best wine we had during our 3 weeks in Italy.
I loved this strange little apartment!