Moneglia, Italy – Authentic, Small Town

If you travel one train stop past the towns of Cinque Terre you will end up in a beautiful small town called Moneglia.

This town was one of my favorite places in Italy.

My friends and I got there on a Saturday afternoon after a 4 hour journey from Florence. Once we arrived, after a lot of confusion about bus ticket prices and how to get to where we were going (there was one person working at the train station and he didn’t speak a word of English, and could not understand our broken Italian), a tiny bus took us to our bed and breakfast – Cielo e Mare. We were greeted by a lovely woman named Rita who showed us to our rooms. The view from the b&b was spectacular.

Now, it didn’t take us long to realize that this town was small, I mean very small, in the way that everyone knew one another. We did not meet any other English-speaking tourists on our stay there. There were some people on holiday, but they were Italians from other towns (probably looking to escape the tourists!).

It was a long winding walk down to the city centre and beach – good exercise and absolutely gorgeous views:

It was a chilly day but we stepped into the ocean and let the salt water wash over us. This is the type of beach experience you want to have in Italy. It was not crowded, there was no one targeting tourists trying to sell us something – all we felt was the ocean breeze and the calm of the mountains around us (a big contrast to the often, extremely busy beaches of

Cinque Terre which are only a short distance away).

We went into a little bar right by the beach to grab something to eat, and my goodness, what a welcome did we receive. The bar owner came up to us and gave us slices of his home-made pizza to try, all the workers wanted to chat about where we were from and what we were doing in Italy. It was such a warm and genuine welcome that I think about it to this very day!

There were a few small shops around town selling all sorts of souvenirs and little products that were honestly delightful, and very much unlike a lot of the products I have seen elsewhere. On the Sunday there was a big market by the beach which sold just about anything you can imagine – it wasn’t targeted at all towards tourists, but more so towards Italians (they were selling towels with American flags, celebrities, etc. on them).

I was SO sad to leave Moneglia, and can’t believe I spent only 2 days there! I could’ve easily spent a week!

My tip for you is: if you’re in the Cinque Terre region go that extra stop and visit Moneglia!

Bonus tip: staying in Moneglia is 5 times cheaper than staying in the main Cinque Terre towns and you could get a train pass for about €10-€15 to travel an unlimited amount of times between the towns.

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