Has anyone stayed at the B&B - Castello di Monleone in the town of Moneglia (which I believe is just North of the Cinque Terre)? Is this a good spot for home base? We are hoping to explore the surrounding area for approximately four days. We will be traveling via train from Venice. <BR>

We stayed in the Cinque Terre this year for 4 nights, at Manarola. A really good website is:<BR>http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/avong/cinque_terre/<BR><BR>We visited all the CT villages as well as Levanto. You can buy a travel card that allows you to hop on and off trains between La Spezia and Levanto and also to hike all the CT trails. I think if you are keen to see the Cinque Terre, you should stay IN the Cinque Terre, not outside it. There are quite a few accommodation choices in all the villages. Vernazza is probably the prettiest, Monterosso is the biggest and Corniglia the hardest to get to (lots of stairs!).<BR><BR>Santa Margherita Ligure is worth a visit if you have time, it's about an hour north of Monterosso by train.<BR>Kay

Monterosso, then Levanto, then Moneglia it's a 15-minute ride north on the local train between Moneglia and Monterosso. Agree with Kay in that if you want to explore the Cinque Terre towns, you should stay in one of them. <BR>

Message to Kay: Where can one buy a travel card that allows you to hop on and off trains between La Spezia and Levanto?<BR>Jane

Jane,<BR>you can buy the CT travel card at any of the CT villages, at the train station. You can buy a 1 day, 3 day or 7 day card. You should get a local timetable with it. We found it good value, as you have to pay to hike the trails anyway (as it's a National Park) so if you have a couple of train trips as well you come out in front. We found info on the card hard to find at first but then noticed large posters in the stations with all the details.<BR>Kay

Hi Dianne: You had already asked this question in an earlier posting....I had suggested splitting the coastline and see the northern towns you want to see (i.e. Portofino, Genoa, etc) by staying in Moneglia or other. Then choosing a CT town to see the CT area. Moneglia is in the middle of the coast and it would be hard to navigate that much area given all that you want to see. Again, I would pick a northern Riviera town near Portofino or Camoglia and stay 2 days seeing the area, then go southward to CT and see the towns for the other 2 days. All towns are right on the train line so not difficult to get to. Hope you can decide which will work best for you.