Route to and stay at Cinque Terra Italy

Your route is very indirect but I suppose you have a reason for going that way rather than via Switzerland.
We once stayed at Sestri Levante on an unmemoranle  campite. The review of Camping La Sfinge on the Alan Rogers page sounds a better choice than we made. I like the Alan Rogers reports and am surprised this Club doesn’t publicise its ownership of them.

Would that route avoid the Swiss Vignette? If so then could it mean a far cheaper journey?

Colin

As said above, unless you’ve a reason for visiting the Cannes area the route appears to be an unusual one. The coastal motorway from France into Italy is a challenging one, particularly if towing. There are multiple (and I mean multiple) tunnels, many with relatively sharp bends for tunnels. Whilst the motorway hugs the coast there is little evidence of sea views due to the number of tunnels. Switzerland and the St Gottard tunnel is the easiest route but having to buy two vignettes, one for the caravan, makes the route expensive. An alternative, albeit longer mileage wise is over the Brenner pass. We’ve stayed at a site in Levanto which was a short walk from the town and the railway  station. The train service to the 5 towns is excellent and I’d recommend it. The sites in the area a busy for most of the time and it would be prudent to pre-book especially if your time there clashes with the Bavarian school holidays (Pfingsten). Pitch sizes are quite small on most of the sites in the area so do some research when choosing one.

We considered visiting the Cinque Terre last year as our route to Lago Trasimeno took us along that coast.

However, although we did have an overnight we decided against it for a number of reasons but the site we used-Marina 3B, at Sarzana-was very good and we would happily stay there again.

Its just outside La Spezia for the train, and there is also a station in Sarzana as well as the option we would have gone for of a boat trip from the harbour in La Spezia. 

We also considered the coastal route from France into Italy but in the end went via the Frejus tunnel after a stay at Annecy. 

First let me clarify our outfit, we have a caravan towed by a Ford Mondeo.  Being retired we do not need to rush about so we tend to take the more leisurley routes. For the past few years (before covid) we traveled to Northern Italy by way of the motorways over Brenner Pass or at Villach further East. So I am familiar with those two routes over the Alps 

However about ten years ago we traveled to the Mediterranean coast by way of the Rhone valley and as we are crossing to Hook of Holland it seemed a natural route to follow.  I should say that this year we did part of the planned route in reverse, journeying from Nancy in France, first to Maastricht and then Delft in Holland. This was part of our trip to Slovenia, returning by way of Lake Garda, Innesbruck and Friedrichshaven before France.

This coming years trip is planned to take in the French Mediterranean, including Monaco (to cross it off the bucket list) before stopping somewhere on the cinque terre for an extended stay.  Camping La Sfinge looks promising although a site near La Spezia is also a contender.    From there we have not decided which way to return.  We generally try to avoid Switzerland because of the vignette expense so it will be either back through France or possibly Austria.

Anyway many thanks for the comments.

In 2006, our first-ever motorhome stop in Italy was at Ceriale on the Riviera de Ponente. The site was typically Italian in that it was tightly-packed, expensive, but friendly. Having been shoe-horned into a ‘pitch,’ we got to know ‘Arry and Reena whose caravan was levered into the neighbouring slot. Being Dutch, they were seasoned travellers and it was from them that we first heard of the ‘Cinque Terre’.

As we were to learn, the Cinque Terre is made up of five villages, Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso, perched on Italy's Ligurian coast between Genova and La Spezia. The area is a national park accessible only by train, boat or on foot.

We camped at ‘La Sfinge’ above Deiva Marina. From June to September a free bus service takes campers to the station, from where you can take the train to the five towns. You buy a ticket to cover the journey to Sestri Levante and a pass (day or longer) for the park

We got off the train at Manarola and walked along the cliff path known as the ‘Via dell’ Amore’ to Riomaggiore. We liked it so much that we walked back again and then on to Corniglia, a longer walk, which ended in 365 steps up to the town. After a light lunch, we caught the train to Vernazza for a walkabout before returning to Deiva.

 Next day we returned to visit the fifth town, Monterrosso, which has the best beaches of the Cinque Terre. The towns are all delightful, even when bustling with tourists. The cliff walks vary in length and difficulty; however, the towns are also accessible by boat. There are other footpaths across the park for ‘real’ walkers.

 For more info go to http://www.parconazionale5terre.it

We have driven through France by way of Annecy to Cannes and then east along the coast into Italy as far as Albenga. We then went on to Lake Garda. If it is any help for ideas of routes or stop overs, although we did use some French Aires for overnight stops, you can read about the first part of the trip >here<. I don't recommend you tow along the Gorge du Verdun but in addition to a stop over at Annecy, it would make a great stop over on a site and drive the gorge by car only before going on to Cannes.

peedee

I think we stayed near Sestri Lavanti but I do remember asking for a large pitch and the proprietor was delighted to offer us one less than a metre longer than our Bailey Valencia. It was also up a steep slope and the van bottomed out using the mover. Attractive villages best seen from the sea but we took the hop-on, hop-off, coastal railway like most others. Everywhere full of tourist tat and nothing to see of course.  
Once we (quickly) got fed up with the overcrowding we took the excellent motorways up to Lake Maggiore for a couple of weeks, returning via our usual route through Domodossola and the Simplon pass into Switzerland then France.