Italy - La Spezia

Hmmmmm. They do have a pedestrian street. We did have an amazing dinner on that street with a woman server that we loved. But. BUT. It just feels like you’re missing out. Like you are right next to some of the most beautiful places in the world and you decided to stay 10 minutes away from it? Are you stupid? Well yes. Yes I am. In this particular case, we only had one night. The hotel was right next to the train station, and the train is like 10 minutes and 2 euros from the first cinque terre town. For us, it was perfect. Especially after I saw the layout of the Cinque Terre towns. They all had small hotels that did have “available” signs (these aren’t the types of places you find on hotels.com), but walking up and down those hills, trying to find a spot we liked, in that heat, man it would’ve been torture. I like what La Spezia was…a perfect jumping off point. If I had more than one night in the area though, I would stay on that damn water in one of those amazing towns.

Notes to self:

-We didn’t go with the hotels restaurant recommendation (and actually got up from a crappy table we were sat at since it was late and there were plenty of better tables open and screw you for thinking I wanted this crappy table and for not asking us where we wanted to sit and for making it so hot in your restaurant and I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!) but we did walk around their pedestrian street for a bit and found some great patio heavy tables right down the road.

Hotel Firenze La Spezia - Jun 2014

This hotel is great because it is right next to the train station. That’s it. Right when you walk in you notice how old and crappy the lobby is. Furniture that you would beg your grandmother to get rid of. The rooms are not too small but the beds are wood boxes with some sheets on them. The bathrooms are very basic. Our room did have a nice window looking out onto one of the main avenues…so not bad on that front.

In reviews peopled talked about the included breakfast on the top floor. This breakfast is ridiculous and people who call it great should be pelted with eggs and bacon.

As mentioned in the La Spezia section, this town does not have many options. So one must weigh the hotel description above against the inconvenience of schlepping to one of the Cinque Terre towns. If I was staying in the area for a few days, I would schlep. If I came again for the one day treatment, I might actually stay at La Firenze again. It was that convenient.

Notes

-To be fair, the front desk lady was nice, and she did let us store our bags in the completely unsecured and available side lobby room that nobody would notice in a million years if someone had robbed it.
-The bar, though the opposite of happening or even resembling an actual bar, did have some nice employees and a decent amount of stuff.
-They did apparently have room service, but fuck that noise.