How Long In Cinque Terre
 

We will be traveling from Rome To Cinque Terre this summer. Our plan now is to spend 5 nights in Rome and 2 nights in CT and then continuing our trip from there. We will really almost have 5 full days in Rome since our flight arrives in Rome at like 7:00am. We were planning on taking the morning train from Rome to La Spezia which leaves a 7:30 and arrives in La Spezia at 12:13 in the afternoon and then heading to Vernazza, which would give us a little over 1 1/2 days in CT. So my question is that enough time in CT or would it be better to leave Rome the evening before and spend 3 nights in CT so that we have 2 full days in CT. Doing this we would have to take an evening off of Rome time.

What do you think?

It depends on if you want to do a lot of hiking or if you just want to visit all the villages by either train or boat.

If you are doing the latter, you can easily see all of them in part of a day. There isn't much to do but walk around--not all that much shopping. All the villages are very small--some smaller than others.

IMO, the best way to visit the villages is to buy a one day pass on the boat. The boat ride is part of the fun and the view of the villages from the sea is picturesque. In 2008, the pass cost 12 Euros.

we stayed 4 nights and could have stayed longer to explore.
We loved taking the boat to the different villages.
Each one more beautiful than the next.
It is fun to stop at an outdoor cafe and have a drink.
It is very low key. PERFECT.
we stayed on Corniglia. I would stay there again.

How much time do you want to spend in a city vs a seaside resort? That's what it boils down to. It's an individual thing. There's a ton of stuff to see in Rome, not much to do in Cinque Terre but enjoy the Dolce Vida.

We did 4 nts Rome/ 3 nts Cinque Terre last August, with teens.

Thanks for the responses. I think it may be best for us to leave Rome the evening before so that we wil have 2 full days in CT. If we leave in the morning even after arriving at the hotel in CT it will take us a little time to get settled so that would take away even more time from the first day. So if we leave the evening before we will only take away a few hours from Rome but will have two full days in CT.

AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE in Cinqueterre!
Sorry to use caps -- I rarely do so on this forum -- but that's how passionate I am about the place. (And I love Rome, too, believe me!)
We have been to Italy many times, but just started visiting Cinqueterre in October 2006. We returned in October 2008. On both trips, we revised our trip schedule while we were traveling so that we could stay longer in CT than we had planned. Don't shortchange it...it's just as special as (if not more so than!) it's famous for being.:)