We will only have one day to get a taste of the Cinque Terre, so we don't want to waste a lot of time. We will be staying in San Gimignano and will have a car. With that in mind, what's the best/easiest way for us to hit the Cinque Terre?

That is a long day trip--about 2.5 each way. I would drive to Portovenere via La Spezia and take the ferry from there.

Yeah, I know it's a long day trip, but that's all the time we can devote to it. We'd like to at least get a taste of the coast for future reference and for a change of scenery from Tuscany.

Is it pretty easy to park in Portovenere and then board the ferry?

By boat. Drive to Lerici, and take the boat

details are on the web http://www.navigazionegolfodeipoeti.it/

The following is an edited highlight of my trip report from doing this thing:-

Friday, was the piece of resistence. 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 Iyd known in advance?
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 hairys breadth.
2. The first boat is at 8.30, not 9 30am, and if youyre going to walk in the summer, you need the early boat.
3. You have to change at Portovenere on the way back (of which more later).
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.

We chose to get off at Vernazza- excellent gelato- and walk to Monterosso. Lunch in Monterosso was the only unsucccesful meal of the week. Canyt 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 didnyt even get a ythanksy for drawing that to their attention. Took the Boat back to Vernazza and spent a couple of hours there before returning.

Missed the announcement about changing in Portovenere so ended up in La Spezia. Had to get a taxi back to the car and got back about 3 seconds before everyone was due to leave for dinner.

Loved it. Would do it again.

You might look at Rick Steves Italy travel book. I just watched his show on PBS on the Cinque Terre. He showed the train route thru the towns, walking between towns, and by boat. Hope this helps.

I would drive to La Spezia and take the train. Once you have the train ticket you can go to all five towns on the same ticket. The trips between each town are literally only 2-3 minutes by train. If you want to do some of the hike you can do one or two sections and do the train between the other towns. That way you can sample each town, and do a little of the hike. It should be quite doable in one day from San Gimignano. The boats might be nice but it will take more time. Also be aware that if it is (or was recently) raining they may close some or all of the trails. Also the boats don't run in windy or bad weather. We were there for only one day right after a fairly substantial rain last July but still enjoyed ourselves walking around the towns and going about 5 minutes or so out of each town on the trails. Great views. The first trail (southernmost, the shortest, flatest one) actually had a locked gate on it to keep you out. The others had signs and one had a man standing there telling hikers it wasn't safe. Hopefully for you it won't rain.

Train versus boat--let the weather dictate. I prefer seeing it from the water, but boats do not run if seas are high. Parking can be a problem, but not so much at 0900--get an early start.

With your time limitation, taking a boat could be too slow. Follow some of the other advice, drive to La Spezia, and catch a train from there. Leave early and arrive in La Spezia no later than 10:00 a.m.---earlier if possible. Then you can not only visit every village by train, but you can also catch one of the many boat tours if you prefer to see the scenery from the sea. Good luck.