Europe 2022: Cinque Terre Beds and Bites

Kelley Bauer
Oct 2, 2022
3 min read

We stayed at the Hotel Palme in Monterosso and loved it. The courtyard in front of the hotel was stunning. Full of tall palm trees protecting the tables and lounge couches from the sun; the entrance clearly gave the hotel its name. We found this hotel very friendly, and they even did our laundry for us at a cheaper cost than the laundromat down the street. As with each of our hotels on this trip, Hotel Palme also had a large breakfast bar. This was our first experience with the hazelnut spread dispenser! Needless to say, we put that spread on many croissants while we were there.

I am not sure why I didn't get better pictures of the courtyard, but it was my second favorite of all of our hotel lounging spots, second only to Hotel K&K in London.

Lunches of Cinque Terre

While hiking on our first full day, we ate lunch in Vernazza. The region is known for their fried seafood in paper cones. So after that hike, fried food and cold beer sounded like perfection.

And, of course, we enjoyed gelato. Now this gelato spot was the real deal. The key is you need to look for gelato that is covered with a lid, not the gelato that is colorful and heaping in the window. If it's covered, then it's made in house.

After this, is when Robert suggested we keep hiking. It's a good thing we had fueled appropriately.

On day 2, lunch was focaccia at the beach.

These are just two of the varieties we had. Imagine warm, buttery, doughy bread with fresh grated cheese and any combination of vegetables you want. Sprinkled with a little olive oil and you have perfection.

Dinners in Monterosso

I had many reservations made in different villages just to keep our options open, but ultimately, we wanted to keep our evenings easy with just a walk to dinner. On our first night, we didn't reserve and instead planned to walk and explore the Old Town of Monterosso. We happened upon a little spot on a little side lane (my favorite kind of place). There was a bit of a language barrier here, but because of my expert Italian, we were able to order. We didn't all get what we ordered, but it was still fabulous.

Ristorante Al Carugio was perfection. I ordered truffle prawn spaghetti. I will always order the truffle. (I am learning that I needed more pictures of our food.) Our bread was warm. Frennie and Elaine got a huge caldron of risotto (another regional specialty) and seafood.

On night number two, we had reservations on the cliff at Ristorante L'Ancora Tortuga. This place never answered their phone, so I walked there on the first day to inquire about availability. But we left the hotel early enough to walk the town some more and came upon the place I had wanted to eat so badly. They do not take reservations. There was a line to wait for a table. It was a tiny place, but Stanley Tucci had visited here, and I knew it was worth the wait. All I had to do was call L'Ancora and cancel.

So while we waited across the way, we had aperitif at Enoteca da Eliseo, also frequented by Tucci.

Is this Stanley Tucci? I mean how ironic that we sat right next to his twin!

The star of the night, though, was the food at Da Eraldo.

This olive bolognese ravioli was possibly the best thing I ate in Europe. The second picture was marinated veggies for first course. The final picture shows that we did have to do two tables, but we were fine with it, despite the looks on their faces. Ha!

On night three, we walked to Tosca Bistrot. Just look at the food.