Our original plan was to spend the entire week in Cinque Terre, giving each village a full day with some spares for the hikes. Call it a hunch (or maybe experience) but we pivoted a week before travelling and committed to leaving Cinque Terre for Santa Margherita a short train ride north of Monterosso half way through our trip. This turned out to be a great decision, as we were pretty much done with Cinque Terre by this point
Santa Margherita is a cute seaside town, larger and so better served than any of the villages in Cinque Terre. It serves as a good base to explore some of the places to see in the area - obviously including the five villages. We were looking forward to having restaurants still open past 6pm.
Since we arrived early we decided to make use of the day and take the ferry to San Fruttuoso and Portofino. The first was an abbey located on a relatively remote and intimate bay. Planning a few hours there we actually spent the one exploring what little it had - perhaps with a good book it could have been somewhere to spend more time just chilling out, but as that wasn't the mood of the day we decided to head on to Portofino.
Like San Fruttuoso, Portofino was more about vibe and food than anything in particular to see or do, although it was far larger. After lunch we we did a few local hikes up to the church and lighthouse, and then walked the 6km or so back to our accommodation in Santa Margherita for a pizza dinner.
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