Hotel Della Baia - Le Grazie, Portovenere

The location of the Hotel is difficult to find, especially if you take public transportation from the train station in La Spieza. A taxi is worth the cost but ask first how much it will be because it is a long drive to La Grazie.Although the bus makes a stop in La Grazie, if you have any luggage ( as we did), walking to the Hotel is not easy, especially when you don't know where you are suppose to walk. The website directional information is very limited and is not helpful. Once you find the Hotel, it is a gem in a very small, quiet, remote town located on a bay filled with boats. There are only a few restaurants in the town and the food at the Hotel is limited. If we were to travel to this coastal area again, we would visit Portovenere for the day and not have stayed in La Grazie. Finally, when you travel to this area near Portovenere, most people come here to take a boat to the Cinque Terre ( 5 villages), which departs from Portovenere. There are no benefits in staying in Le Grazie if this is your only trip to Italy.

The hotel was great, but it was stated "Free parking spaces available in front of the hotel". Not true. We were charged for parking at the hotel and we had a spot in the designated area.

September 2006 We had a nice large room facing the water. Other rooms looked quite small, but I had asked for a water-view room with a larger bath/shower because of my large husband. A/C works only when you are in your room (keyed), but it was fine with warmer days. Not sure about very hot days. Reception and restaurant staffs were very nice, and most spoke enough or good English to help us. The food was good at the restaurant. I would definitely return to this hotel, and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a more quiet area. The smaller harbor and village are not full of tourists as is Portovenere. We did take the local bus to Portovenere, from where we took the boat to Cingue Terra. (Buy bus tickets at the Le Grazie post office during limited hours. It was closed when we tried, but luckily the bus driver let us ride for free. We bought return tickets and more for the next day out of a machine near the bus stop in Portovenere.) Lovely view of Cinque Terra villages coming in from the water. Easy to train between some of the villages if you don't want to walk long distance. In Corniglia, look for the little bus that will take you up to the village. Otherwise it is several hundred stair steps up the hill. Enjoy this hotel and town. We did!

Excellent location, in very quiet Le Grazie bay, which affords visit by boat (instead of train) to towns of Cinque Terre -- definitely the right way to approach these special towns. Portovenere, by contrast, is a very busy beach town. We would definitely stay here again! Half-board was quite good, not super. Rooms were satisfactory. Getting there by car wasn't too hard. We had Google maps to help, but we drove right by the turn to La Grezia and into Portovenere (we interpretted the directions on line to go all the way to Portovenere). Since Portovenere is the end of the road, we were soon back at the La Grezia turnoff and then had little more difficulties before locating the hotel.

Parking isn't particularly easy, only 5 spaces outside the kitchens!

A graeat location that has the closeness of Portvenere and Cinque Terra with minimum traffic.

This location was awesome! Quiet, peaceful and nice contrast to our visit to Rome and Florence.

Nice clean room in a good hotel in a superb part of Italy. Had a great view overlooking the harbour and a balcony.