A Very Short Stay

Our plan for our time in Cinque Terre was to stay in a nearby town, La Spezia, which is inland of the main five towns that make up Cinque Terre, and very readily accessible by train.

We arrived quite late in the day, after our giant last day in Florence, and our quick stop in Pisa.

And eventually we found our hotel. Long story short, our check-in was not a pleasant experience. We were supposed to have a deal (advertised on their website) whereby we would pay 1 euro per year of age per person - resulting in a total cost of 52 euros per night (yes, I was still 25 at the time). Sounds fantastic, right?

Wrong. While they played along and told us we needed a reservation when we were organising our accommodation from Australia, we turned up, and they said that that deal is only available to walk-ins off the street who don't have reservations already IF and only IF the hotel has available rooms. So instead, 130 euros per night. No apologies. Oh, and the cost to cancel a reservation is the cost of the room for the first night. So we were up for 130 euros regardless.

We were furious. And horrified at the thought of spending that much to stay in a hotel that wasn't even right in the centre of where we wanted to be spending our time, in Cinque Terre.

So. We told them we would stay the first night and cancel the remaining two. And decided to try to forget about it so we could at least enjoy dinner in the town. Which we did!

So, what happened with the hotel then? We had a lovely night's sleep, and turned up at the front desk the next morning and asked if they had any rooms available (hoping we could potentially get that advertised deal for the extra two nights we had originally booked but since cancelled).

The answer? No. That was it. That was the reception guy's only response for us. Just "no".

So we stormed out. And I have no qualms in announcing the name of this hotel as My One Hotel, La Spezia. The hotel itself was nice, but the staff were rude, their policies misleading, and I intend to give them a terrible review on tripadvisor.

In the meantime, back to our holiday, I was freaking out about not actually having a bed to sleep in for the next two nights. And off we went to the train station to enjoy our first taste of Cinque Terre, and of course to try to find a place to stay. As I said, freaking out!!!