The pearls in the gulf of poets: Cinque Terre private tour

Good news, bad news. Bad news first: The description is a complete exaggeration of a “tour” and way over-priced for what we got. We spent $830.00 on a driver. That’s it. We should have just walked 5 minutes to the Florence train station, taken the train to La Spezia then train up and down the Cinque Terre villages. What we got: A nice driver, Osvaldo, picked us up at our Airbnb at 8am. He pointed out a few things on our 2 ½ hour drive to the first village of the Cinque Terre (CT), Riomaggiore. At 10:30 am, he dropped us off at the top of the hill and said, “Ciao see you at 3:30pm in La Spezia.” What? I thought the word “tour” meant we would get some information along the way through the villages. Minimally, a strong recommendation, some tips or something! All we got was a recommendation to see 2, no more than 3 villages in the time allotted. The “Mercedes” reminded me of an old Dodge Caravan we had back in the 1990’s. No, ours was more comfortable. No water (fortunately, we brought our own), and the air conditioning did not work in the back seat. The tour company made a lunch reservation for 1:00pm at an over-priced, not-friendly servers, and no-air-conditioning restaurant. It was supposed to have a view, but all we saw was the side of a white van parked across the street. We should have just picked our own or “winged it.” At the end of a hot day, we could not find our driver at the La Spezia train station. He did not tell us where the meeting point was, and we couldn’t reach him through WhatsApp. We were frustrated and hot and were dropped off at our Airbnb. I communicated that the air conditioning was not working in the back, and he just shrugged. It was coming out where he was sitting, but not where I was! Cost: A rip-off. We could have trained from Florence to La Spezia for $16.00/per, then bought a Cinque Terre train card for $8.00. Oh, $16.00 to return. Good news: Osvaldo was very nice…just doing his job. We tipped him generously.

Our guide, Alejandro (Jorge) Videla was horrible. From the moment he picked us up he had a bad attitude. He required my elderly relative to wear a mask when he himself wasn't wearing one, and never put one on. He said the mask was required because otherwise the police would pull him over and fine him 3000 euro. Everything he commented on during the 2 hours drive to Cinque Terre was either political, a complaint or a political complaint. He began by saying how much he hasted American tourists, so maybe he should not be working in tourism. He then proceeded to make homophobic comments about the Pride flag at the US embassy. He also expressed his support for two communist dictators, one of which destroyed our own country of origin. He also brought up the war in Ukraine for the sole reason of saying the worst thing about it is how it has affected him and especially his gas expenses. He acted like him dropping us off where the tour description specified was a huge favor, which he repeated several times to us. These are just a. few of the comments he made. Cinque Terre was lovely but the drive to and from made the trip very difficult to enjoy.

The customer service went about and beyond our expectations. It was my husband's birthday, and Valentina was extremely helpful in organizing a special day for us with reservations, information, etc. Our guide/driver, "Mr. T." was so friendly and helpful, made our traveling a breeze. I couldn't recommend this team enough. Many, many thanks for making this a very special experience!