Visiting Cinque Terre was an absolute dream come true. What an extraordinary, magical location. I’m so grateful we were able to spend a full day exploring as a family, the kids enjoyed themselves and had a great time despite it not being the most kid friendly place.

Cinque Terre translates to ‘five lands’ and that names derives from the five towns that are within the Cinque Terre National Park area. Five towns are: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Where we stayed:

We stayed in La Spezia for two nights and dedicated one full day to exploring the towns of Cinque Terra by train. La Spezia is the nearest large town to Cinque Terre, with a main train station that is connected to other major towns like Florence. I quite liked the vibe of La Spezia, it was lively with lots of shopping, cafes and restaurants. We stayed in an apartment in a central location where we could walk to the train station, however, parking was a nightmare, we had to leave our car parked about a 20 min walk away.

Our itinerary for our day exploring Cinque Terre:

We first caught the train from La Spezia to Monterosso al Mare, which is the furtherest of the five towns from La Spezia. From there we worked our way back towards La Spezia, visiting a total of four of the fove towns.

Monterosso has the best beach for swimming, with a long stretch of sand in front of the town. We dedicated a bit of time for swimming here and the girls loved swimming in the calm, warm water. There are a number of beach clubs where you can rent a beach lounge and umbrella but we found the public section and just parked up on the sand, along with many others.

Afterwards we did a little walk along the shoreline and through the tunnel to another beach sections. We then jumped back on the train and went one stop back in the direction of La Spezia to Vernazza.

Vernazza was a great spot to have lunch as there are a number of restaurants to choose from on the waterfront. Vernazza has a small beach which some people were swimming in but most were lounging along the rock walls of the harbour, enjoying the sun. We climbed up the hill behind the church, navigating the labyrinth like street, to enjoy the view over the harbour.

Next stop on our train trip was Manarola, skipping over Corniglia as it’s the only town of the five that it’s not on the water, it sits high up on the cliffs. Manorola seems to be the town that is featured the most in photos of Cinque Terre, it has an iconic view over the small harbour with the colourful houses cascading down the cliffs. (although Vernazza and Riomaggiore looked quite similar)

There is surprisingly a great kids playground where you’ll find the best vantage point for photos of Manarola, so the girls had a great time playing while we enjoyed the view. There is a restaurant in prime position to take in the view but they don’t take reservations so there seemed to be a constant line up of people waiting to get a table. We didn’t bother trying but we did stop off for gelato in Manarola, which kept the girls in high spirits for our last stop in Riomaggiore.

Riomaggiore is probably the smallest of the five towns, with a little harbour and narrow streets. Here, we got a drink and sat on the rocks while Braino had a quick dip in the water. There is a rocky beach around the headland but he just jumped in off the rocks in the harbour where most people were swimming. By this stage it was late in the afternoon and the sun was starting to go down, it was very relaxing just sitting on the rocks, people watching and soaking in the atmosphere.

A few things to note about visiting Cinque Terre with kids:

The trains are the most convenient way to see all the towns. You can catch a ferry from La Spezia to the various towns but I didn’t really look into that option too much. You definitely can’t access the tows via a car. The trains left regularly and but were very busy. The streets around the train stations are also very busy and crowded.

We purchases a train passes from https://card.parconazionale5terre.it/ We did have train officials check our passes too, so I’d recommended being prepared with a screen shot of your train pass on your phone.

It only takes about 15 minutes to get from La Spezia to Riomaggiore (the first town) and then it’s only 5 - 10 minutes on the train between each town.

While it is a lot of walking around and enjoying the view, the girls still enjoyed themselves. It helped planning to have swim at Monterosso and the promise of a gelato is always helpful.

You can hike between each of the town, I would actually love to visit again and do the hike It does require a hiking permit and it’s very steep in parts so we didn’t priorize it with the girls being so young.

While you can find accommodation in any of the five towns of Cinque Terre, we were pretty happy with our decision to stay in La Spezia and just catch the train out as a day trip. Catching the busy trains with your luggage would be pretty uncomfortable and then locating your accommodation in the steep, narrow, maze like streets would also be a challenge. We came across a lady who was lost and struggling to find her accommodation in Vernazza,