Logbook
Practical guides and notes from the water, written aboard Ghibli.
Proposing or Celebrating an Anniversary on a Private Boat in Cinque Terre
Every season I get a few messages that begin the same way. We are coming to Monterosso in June, and I would like to ask her on the boat. Or: it is our tenth anniversary and we want to spend it on the…
A Cinque Terre Boat Tour With Kids: What Actually Works
Parents usually ask me the same two things before they book. Will the children be bored, and what happens if it does not go well. Both are fair questions. Here is how a boat trip along this coast…
Cinque Terre Boat Tour for Cruise Passengers Docking in La Spezia
Most ships calling on this stretch of the Ligurian coast dock at Porto di La Spezia. Cinque Terre itself has no cruise berth, so if you want to see the five villages from the water, you travel to…
The Best Month for a Cinque Terre Boat Tour: A Captain's View of the Season
People ask which month is best for a boat tour here, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you want from the day. Warm water, calm sea, quiet villages and good light do not all arrive in…
Vernazza From the Sea
Every photograph you've ever seen of Vernazza — the one on the postcard rack, the one on the cover of the guidebook, the one your friends posted — was taken from the water, or from a cliff path…
September and October on the Water: The Cinque Terre After the Crowds
Every year, sometime in the first week of September, the coast exhales. The August crowds thin, the queues at the ferry landings shorten, and the sea — which has been soaking up sun since June — is…
What Does a Boat Tour in the Cinque Terre Cost?
People write to us with all sorts of questions — about the weather, about seasickness, about whether the swim stop is really optional (it is) — but the most common question, by a distance, is also…
Private vs Shared Boat Tour in the Cinque Terre: An Honest Comparison
We get this question at the pier almost every day: should we book the boat privately, or join the shared evening sailing? Since Ghibli runs both, we can answer it honestly — there is no wrong choice,…
Staying in Levanto? Your Guide to a Boat Tour from Monterosso
Some of our favourite guests aboard Ghibli are the ones staying in Levanto. They arrive relaxed, they have usually had a proper breakfast, and they are always a little surprised by how easy the…
Cinque Terre Boat Tour from La Spezia: The Complete Guide
Every summer we welcome guests aboard Ghibli who started their morning in La Spezia — it is where many trains, cruises and road trips into this corner of Liguria naturally arrive. The good news is…
Best time of day for a Cinque Terre boat tour from Monterosso
There isn't a wrong hour to be on the water off Monterosso, but the four tours read differently depending on when Ghibli leaves Molo dei Pescatori.
What to bring on a private boat tour from Monterosso
Packing for a few hours on Ghibli is simpler than most guests expect, mostly because the boat already carries the things people worry about forgetting.
Monterosso to Portovenere by boat: a day in the Gulf of Poets
Portovenere sits just past the edge of the Cinque Terre proper, at the mouth of the Gulf of Poets, and reaching it by boat from Monterosso is the only way to take in both the five villages and this…
Why Ghibli is a working fishing boat, not a tourist boat
Ghibli fishes. Not as a story told to guests, not as a detail on a laminated card handed round before departure — in spring and autumn, when the tour season quiets, the boat goes back out for the…
Where to snorkel in the Cinque Terre: the best coves along the coast
The Cinque Terre is better known for its trail than its water, but the coastline underneath the villages holds its own — clear water, rock rather than sand, and coves that are only reachable by boat,…
Seeing the Cinque Terre by boat vs. by train: why the water view wins
The trail between the five villages has closed for repair often enough in recent years that most visitors now arrive by train — a reasonable way to move between Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia,…
Welcome aboard Ghibli
Ghibli is a working fishing boat from Monterosso. In summer we leave the nets and take you along the Cinque Terre coast — the Cinque Terre from the water, the quiet coves, and the stories of a…