Four of us stayed in the Crismar Hotel from 24th April - 1st May 2012. We were impressed by the very central location - 10 minutes walk from the station at the end of a small alleyway (off a pedestrian shopping street) that opened out to a small square. The hotel looks charming from the outside and there was a warm welcome when we booked in. Our rooms were fine - clean and with an en suite bathroom. There was aircon and satellite TV. The addition of a small chest of drawers would have been useful. Breakfast was fairly basic, but there was coffee and juice, cereal and fresh milk and various pastries (including croissants with jam)..........we didn't set off for our visits to the Cinque Terre feeling hungry! All in all, a good place to stay - very well-situated for the town of La Spezia - a proper Italian town with a number of attractive features - a good market, a promenade where ferry boats depart, a castle and several museums as well as a range of restaurants and lots of shops. We would recommend it.

Don´t bank on your GPS to take you to the door as the hotel is tucked away down a little side street off a main pedestrian shopping area so you will need to park on the road behind (Via Roma, I think) if you can find space. It´s blue zone parking so need to pay if parking before 8pm or after 8am. The young lady who welcomed us made us feel like friends, rather than paying guests and couldn´t have made us feel more welcome. She pre-warned us of a group who were staying who had been quite noisy the previous night and told us to let us know if we were bothered by them but we heard no noise at all and had a perfect night´s sleep.

The hotel is very small, only 9 rooms, and all the rooms are named after local villages around the Cinque Terre area. The room was quite small and basic, but extremely comfortable, clean and very quiet as there is no traffic outside of the hotel. The hotel looks like a recently renovated old property and has been tastefully decorated inside in a modern way, but showing lots of the old, original stone walls and with the original wooden floorboards.

Breakfast is in a cosy room at the back of the hotel and is a small but sufficient buffet (fresh fruit, yoghurts, bread, cakes, juice, tea/coffee etc). There is plenty of local information in the reception to help you plan your visit if you need it and free WiFi connection which worked perfectly.

There are loads of places to eat off the main pedestrian road and you should´t have to use your car to get around the town which is quite small.

I would definitely stay again if returning to La Spezia or recommnend it to friends and family.

This place was one of the worst we stay in 2 months biking around Europe. The husband(I presume its a husband and wife) was a jerk. Unhelpful, rude and clearly hates his job. Breakfast is nothing - poor quality, poor variety. Went downstairs at 7.30am to get some help to log on to the internet - no one there (sign says Reception open at 7am). When he arrived at 7.50am he pointed to the breakfast sign that said 8am and snarled at me. I ponted to the Reception open at 7am and smiled back. Just find somewhere else.