Pro Loco Monterosso al Mare — Local services in Monterosso al Mare

We’ve been planning for several months to come to Italy, and also to visit the Cinque Terre. When we asked where we could store luggage in Monterosso, our apartment company said Pro Loco below the train station. Their website said they were open. On our last day, we had six hours to wait for our train, and we’re going to visit a couple of other towns during that time. When we went to leave our luggage, Pro Loco was not open. The website still said they were open. And listed the days and hours that they were open. I went next-door to a gift shop and a nice lady said that they don’t open until April 1. So, the tourism office for one of the towns in one of the most popular spots in Italy is closed during the winter. And they don’t update their website. And they apparently don’t communicate with the tour operators that rent apartments here. It would be less humorous, if it weren’t, literally, the tourism office. I own two businesses and if we have to be closed even for part of the day due to a power outage or some other reason, we change that on our website and on Google in 30 seconds. Then potential guests don’t waste their time coming to our business when we’re not open. Very frustrating. And something that should be corrected in one of the dozens of websites that profess to be about “everything Cinque Terre”. It’s a pretty important fact to know that the tourism office isn’t available for tourists for a significant part...

I had the only negative experience of a month trip here when they tried to scam me. They told me I had to pay for the full day rate, even though I wasn't sure yet if I was going to be there just 2-3 hours or until close. They said they'd refund me the half-day amount if I came back early. 2 hours later I returned, and they called me liar and refused to return the 25 euros. They asked me why I would pay for the full day if I didn't intend to leave it the full day (after telling me that was the only option when I dropped my bags off). They kept accusing me of making up the scenario they forced on me, threatened to call the police on me, and then when I switched to demanding they just give me the half-day back, after being super kind and placating for a solid 15 min while they refused me and accused me of making things up, said "well I would have but now I won't" when they were already refusing and ignoring and threatening me. I spent 30 min in tears begging the women for my money back while she kept calling me liar and threatening to call the police. It's been 2 years, and I still think about how cruel and scammy they were. One town over there is a baggage storage place that is lovely, with kind staff and no scams. I highly recommend jumping on the train and leaving your luggage...

We used this place to store our luggages for a few hours on a Thursday. The place is perfectly located under the train tracks/station! It wad very easy to just take the elevator from the train track to here and talk with the staff to keep our luggage. We only had to store them for about 4h and the cost was 5eur per big bag. They did say that they have limited storage and we were probably the last ones for the day to store the bags there. So I’d recommend going early! The lady was very nice and helpful, even gave us tips about the city. We were asked to provide a document so they can make a copy of it for the reservation. So make sure to bring something. Always great to be able to store luggages...