Giovanni Rooms Manarola

I’m so glad we selected to stay at Giovanni suites for our 1 night stay in cinque terre. The location is perfect - only a 5 minute walk from the parking area in Manarola and the train station. The room was perfectly clean, including the bathroom. Our room (no.3) had a small terrace which was lovely, but our view was of the street. When we come back, we will request the room with the sea view ahead of time (there are notes in the accommodation that suggest you to request a particular room). We were to arrive outside of the regular check in time, and Giovanni was extremely responsive and easy to coordinate our check in instructions. He was also very helpful with a parking map as we were not familiar with the area.

Clean, quite, only a few minutes walk from anything. If driving, have to park up the hill at the pay public lot and pull your luggage down the hill (and back up when you leave) but it’s much closer than it looks. You may never see the manager (thus the neutral service rating) but really no need to. We’d stay here again.

The room is in a converted home , more like an apartment. Very new and modern. The stairs are an issue as they are steep (not up to US code) and narrow which makes it difficult to haul a heavy suitcase up them (no elevator in the place). There is no receptionist and you contact the owner by email or phone. The "hotel" is at the top of a hill and it is a steep climb to get there. About 200 meters up hill. Great view!. Close to restaurants.

It was great and just what we wanted and needed on our vacation. The staff was very accommodating.

It was a tale of two rooms...one terrible and one lovely. My understanding is that there are 5 rooms in the Giovanni rooms. We were initially given the room on the ground floor. I would strongly encourage Giovanni to stop offering this room, or if offering it, drop the price to 60-70 euros/night. This room has no window, just a door with tinted glass that is on the street level and there was so much noise from the street we hardly slept. The bathroom was small with no place to hang towels or place toiletry bags. We complained (though not to Giovanni - we never saw him after check-in) and we were able to move to a room upstairs. The room upstairs had a mini fridge, a much larger bathroom, a sea view and no further street noise. As many have noted in other reviews, the host claims on websites that he takes credit cards, but on arrival, he tells you he can't and only accepts cash. This was tricky for us as there was only 1 ATM in the town. Had we seen Giovanni on the second day, we might have asked for some of our money back having stayed in the downstairs room for a night, but our room switch was accomplished through the help of the housekeeper who spoke to him over the phone. Cinque Terre is gorgeous, and our upstairs room was all we could want, but would advise anyone staying here to be sure they were in an upstairs room before committing to a reservation.