Cinque Terre - How many days?
 

Hello everyone,
I'm planning a trip to Europe on September and I want to stop by at Cinque Terre. I've heard it's amazing (your thoughts?), but I'm not sure about the amount of time required to take a full tour of the villages and the landscapes. Are all 5 villages worth the visit? Me and my girlfriend will be arriving from Venice and going to Florence.
A good meal for two is expensive down there?

Thanks.

You can see the towns and hike the cliff paths easily in 2 days (2 nights).

A decent meal - as anyplace else in italy - is what you want to pay - and type of restaurant, number of courses etc. Plenty of casuale if you want.

I hiked the whole 7 miles between all five towns in one day and saw each town as much as I wanted - was glad to escape the very very crowded towns - now maybe in September crowds die down a bit - avoid weekends perhaps.

I think ideally arrive one day poke around or do one segment of hike or two and spend a whole day there - local hoteliers are aloof at times for one night stands, especially on Friday nights I heard.

Two days are plenty.

Two nights would be plenty.

I loved the Cinque Terre, have visited twice. Yes, you can expect it to be crowded with English-speaking tourists. The villages don't require much time to see, but they are fun to dwell in as you take a break from hiking. It's easy to find a place with a nice view of the sea in one of the towns to sit and eat your take-away lunch (Focaccia pizza is awesome, widely available in the CT villages, yum!). Last time, I sat in the tiny main square of Riomaggiore (not very crowded when I was there, plenty of tourists elsewhere) and ate one lunch while staring at the beautiful murals there. There's an elementary school right there too - I could hear the kids singing in music class.