martha

I will be visiting Cinque Terre area in October and am considering staying in Lerici as I've had difficulty finding accomodations in the five villages for my group of 6 to 8. <BR>Would appreciate any comments about Lerici and especially about the ease of getting to CT by boat or train. Does anyone have a web address for the boats? <BR> Also has anyone stayed at La Colonnina Hotel in Monterosso?

Fred

As you can tell from my e-mail address Paris is my forte but we stayed in Lerici several nights when we visited that area and it was wonderful - I felt better than staying in the CT towns. Pretty town to walk around, good restaurants, beautiful beach and harbor area. Easy ferry ride although we took a bus to the train that services the towns. Be careful - the walk between the 1st and 2nd town is on the side of a cliff,a narrow trail. If you have problems with that sort of thing take the train. We stayed at the Doria Park and it was great. 0187/967124 FAX /966459

Sheila

I had a wekk in the area last spring. We stayed in a village called Posara in the mountains in a converted watermill, about 15 milesfrom Lerici. Ourday out to the Cinque Terre went like this <BR> <BR>"3 of us drove down to a resort town on the coast called Lerici, and caught a boat (Navigazione Golfo dei Poeti) to the Cinque Terre. Things I wished I’d known in advance? <BR>1. You need coins or cards to pay the parking meters in Lerici. No-one knows where you get the cards, and did you ever meet anyone with 25,000lire in COINS on them? So we caught the boat by a hair’s breadth. <BR>2. The first boat is at 8.30, not 9 30am, and if you’re going to walk in the summer, you need the early boat. <BR>3. You have to change at Portovenere on the way back (of which more later). <BR>The boats take about 2 hours to get to Monterosso, the furthest away Terre, stopping at all of them except Corniglia, and also stopping at Portovenere. They go back and forth all day so you can go between them by boat. <BR> <BR>We chose to get off at Vernazza- excellent gelato- and walk to Monterosso. Lunch in Monterosso was the only unsucccesful meal of the week. Can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but it was something like La Compagnia, up a lane. The food was OK, but the service was dreadful, and they gave us a non-legal bill which was wrong in our favour. We didn’t even get a “thanks” for drawing that to their attention. Took the boat back to Vernazza and spent a couple of hours there before returning. <BR> <BR>Missed the announcement about changing in Portovenere so ended up in La Spezia. Had to get a taxi back to the car" <BR> <BR>I think the web addess is www.golfodeipoeti.it (I've posted it in here too) and if you run a search on Posara on Lycos, you'll find the web site for the mill. I haven't got time to go and find them right no, but if you get stuck get back to me and I'll look them up for you

Queasy

Two hours for the ferry ride? Should I start loading up on Dramamine now? (I'm staying in Lerici in May . . . .)

Sheila

Well, it's a long way. I hate boats. I could get sick on the boat pond inour local park; but I was fine. The boat hugs the coast- after all, the purpose is sightseeing. We had a stunning day tho'

liz

Martha, hi we stayed in Lerici in August 2 years ago and are returning this summer. We stayed at Hotel Florida right across the street from a nice little beach. It was a small 3* hotel with very small rooms but all clean and a good breakfast was served with great service as well. Try www.navigazionegolfodeipoeti.it for boat service. It's a beautiful ride that you can get on and off at whenever you feel the urge to hike,swim or just lounge on the rocks near the shore. It's an amazing area that should not be missed. I travel with kids and one tends to get motion sickness, but she had no problem on these boats!<BR>Have fun!

Sheila

The boat web address is the one liz posted and the mill is <BR>http://www.watermill.net/<BR><BR>Hope these help