I'm going on the RS 8 day tour of Prague and Budapest and was thinking of heading to CT for 5 nights just to relax. I was thinking about renting an apartment rather than a B"&B just for the purposes of having a kitchen and a little more square footage. Monterosso seems to be the village with the most to do. I am looking for some convenience to shopping and dinin, especially at night. I'd be interested in hearing from folks that have been to CT on your thoughts of which village is the most desirable. If possible, I'd like to avoid staying someplace that I have to haul luggage up a ton of stairs. Will be traveling either in June or late September.
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
11852 posts
Monterosso is definitely the largest with the most restaurants and shops. But you can easily travel from town to town by train, so pick an apartment based on what you like rather than the specific visit. We love to hike, but I hate hauling bags up long flights of stairs, so we have found a couple of places less stair-intensive. We rented an apartment in Manarola last fall and all we had to do was roll our bags up a long, gently rising paved path through the town. We rented from ArbaSpaa, which has a number of apartments in the area.
Some will say 6 nights is too long. We've spent 11 nights total in the CT over three trips (two trips of 3-nights each and one of 5) and would go back for a week in a heartbeat. The food is wonderful and the trains make day-trips up and down the Ligurian Coast a piece of cake, Even if you don't hike, there are places to go. For some ideas, I've blogged about the CT a lot. You can see one post here.
Posted by
Kihei, Hawaii
475 posts
We stayed in Manarola and loved it. All the towns are beautiful though.
Our favorite hotel of our stay in Italy ~ La Torretta
http://www.torrettas.com/
Cannot say enough good things about this place ~ absolutely beautiful and amazing service.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
I assume that you will fly from Budapest to Pisa, Milan, or Genoa (instead of a 20-hour train ride), unless you're stopping at other cities en-route. I have enjoyed staying in four of the five Cinque Terre towns. Manarola was my favorite, because it was my first and smallest, but Monterosso will have more of the services and accessability that you want this time.