Manarola · Boutique · #5 in Cinque Terre
La Torretta Lodge
Thirteen design rooms in a converted medieval tower on Manarola's upper square, with a private rooftop terrace, a complimentary hot tub, and contemporary art on every wall.
Thirteen design rooms in a converted medieval tower on Manarola's upper square, with a private rooftop terrace, a complimentary hot tub, and contemporary art on every wall.
"The most architecturally serious small hotel in the Cinque Terre — a medieval tower converted into thirteen sharply designed rooms, with the Manarola church bell as the morning alarm."
La Torretta Lodge occupies a converted medieval tower on Piazza della Chiesa, the upper square of Manarola where the village's twelfth-century stone church of San Lorenzo stands. The tower itself is one of the oldest surviving structures in Manarola — a defensive watchtower from the village's medieval period — and the conversion, by the Bordone family, opened in 2008 after a four-year restoration. The result is the most architecturally considered small hotel in the Cinque Terre: thirteen rooms across the tower's vertical floors, plus an annex on the adjacent stone lane, with rooftop and terrace amenities that no other Manarola property offers.
The rooms are uniformly contemporary in palette — pale stone, charcoal accent walls, occasional bold-coloured contemporary canvases — and the hotel commissions and rotates a small collection of contemporary Italian art across the corridors and guest rooms. Categories run from Comfort Doubles (smaller, village-side, around 16 square metres) to the Luxury Suite (the top-floor unit with its own private terrace, a 360-degree view across Manarola and out to the Ligurian Sea, and the closest thing to a private aerial photograph viewpoint in the village). Every room has a Nespresso machine, a complimentary minibar (a Cinque Terre rarity), Italian linen, and contemporary bathrooms with rain showers.
The hotel's signature feature is the rooftop hot tub — a small, four-person heated tub on a private rooftop deck, looking south across the tiled village rooftops to the harbour and the open sea. The hot tub is included in every booking and operates by guest reservation (a one-hour private slot, free to book on demand). The Bordone family also operates a small breakfast and aperitivo terrace on the building's first floor, with the same rooftop view, and runs a private boat-charter arrangement for guests through the village's small harbour.
Service is the hotel's quieter strength. The Bordone siblings — Gabriele, Christian, and their family — staff the property themselves alongside a small front-desk team, and the depth of village relationships shows in the booking quality (restaurant reservations are reliable across the Cinque Terre even in peak August), the hiking-path guidance, and the willingness to host private events on the rooftop. Rates are at the top end of the Cinque Terre market — from around EUR 470 for a Comfort Double in shoulder season, to EUR 950+ for the Luxury Suite in summer — but for design-conscious travellers, proposal stays, or anyone who wants the most distinct hotel-architecture statement in the five villages, La Torretta is the answer.
The Luxury Suite with its private terrace, plus a reserved hour in the rooftop hot tub at sunset, is the central honeymoon proposition. Manarola at sunset, seen from a private 360-degree rooftop above the village church, is the Cinque Terre's most quietly cinematic moment, and La Torretta is the only address that delivers it inside the room rate.
For a Cinque Terre proposal that turns on a single setting, the Luxury Suite's private terrace at sunset — or the rooftop hot-tub deck reserved for an hour — is the move. The Bordone family handles the proposal logistics quietly (champagne setup, photographer brief, a discreet two-hour window with no other rooftop guests) with the same competence as the larger Capri and Portofino five-stars two coastlines south.
A Manarola anniversary at La Torretta moves a notch up from the village's standard accommodation: art-curated interiors, complimentary minibar, the rooftop deck, and the small breakfast terrace with the village laid out below. Book the Comfort Suite for a quiet weekend, the Luxury Suite for a milestone year.
Piazza della Chiesa 5
19017 Manarola (SP)
Italy
Manarola railway station 6 minutes downhill; village harbour 5 minutes; Punta Bonfiglio viewpoint 3 minutes; La Spezia Centrale 12 minutes by train
13 rooms (incl. 4 suites)
Comfort Double from EUR 470/night
Superior Sea View from EUR 580/night
Junior Suite from EUR 720/night
Luxury Suite (private terrace) from EUR 950/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Tower restoration completed 2008; Bordone family ownership
Rooftop hot tub (complimentary, private slots)
Rooftop sun terrace
Nespresso & complimentary minibar
Curated contemporary art collection
Air conditioning, blackout shutters
Free WiFi throughout
Private boat charters through village harbour
From EUR 470/night. The Luxury Suite books ten to twelve months ahead for May through September; the lower categories typically open up six weeks out. Closed mid-November through mid-March.
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