Cinque Terre
 

We will be driving (from Pisa) to Cinque Terre region mid May this year. Looking for the best city and hotel to stay;
Nice beach/beach town
easy walk to shopping (tourist type shopping for my wife)
easy access to 5 CT towns
Hotel with parking, and GREAT view.
4-5 star

Thanks for any / all help.

Monterrsso and Riomaggiore are the only two towns to be penetrated by cars so they should be the only ones with any hotels that may offer parking - that may be a hard find - Monterrosso's beach is nice sand - tyhe others I think are rocky - Monterrosso is you best bet for what you want IME.

Also look at Levanto---nice beach just north of Monterosso.

I am not a big fan of Cinque Terre. I suggest you consider staying in Santa Margherita Ligure. It is a nice town as a base for a few days, and it is a 20 minute local train ride to CT.

A 4 or 5 star hotel is not the norm in le Cinque Terre. You should look online at booking.com to get a sense of what the options are, and click the boxes for "hotels with parking." A search on Tripadvisor for le Cinque Terre hotels with parking would also be useful.

Different tourists have different ideas of what makes for fun shopping. The tourist type shopping in le Cinque Terre is fairly rustic and trinket oriented, and you can find it in all the towns. For higher end shopping, one needs to go to the upscale Portofino and sister-town, Santa Margherita Ligure. You will find a greater range of upscale hotels here as well.

I loved la Torretta in Manarola:
http://www.torrettas.com

Plan on taking the train (about 5 minutes between each of the CT villages)..forget about using the car once you settle into Monterosso. You can hike between the five CT villages and take train back to Monterosso...or do day trips from village to village via frequent trains. Beach in Monterosso is by far the best. I don't recall the cost of the train...not much. You can also take a boat fom Monterosso to visit some of the other villages.

We enjoyed The Villa Steno high atop a hill overloking ocean and the town...most rooms have balconies, but one of them #5 had it's own little patio with a lemon tree and great scenc views...and we did not use our rental car at all until we left. Parking is available at The Steno.

The pleasant walk from hotel to downtown and the hiking trails takes about ten minutes or less.

there is also an ocean front hotel in Monterosso...quite a bit more expensive than Steno..forgot the name.

5Terre beaches are nothing to write home about and (in May) the water would be too cold for a swim anyway.

Another vote for Levanto. I've stayed there twice. It has a beach - I went swimming there once. Nice town in its own right, easy to get to the five villages just to the south (but expect to leave the car parked in Levanto most of the time, take the train or boat). Levanto is part of the same national park as the five villages and you can even hike south to Monterosso (but a long hike, I haven't done it).

The trail from Levanto to Monterosso is nice, well signmarked and all but strenous.