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Bank machines in Cinque Terre

Posted by on

We have had significant problems while in the Cinque Terre using a debit card with a Canadian chip and pin. We could not find any machines that would accept our debut ATM cards where Visa Plus is required.. Very few restaurants and no grocery stores will accept credit or debit cards. In the end we took the train to La Spezia. We tried two machines in La Spezia with no success, even though one had Visa Plus. Finally success at Deutsche Bank! There is one merchant in Manarola who is setting up a bank machine mid May 2016 that will take Visa Plus.

So recommendations: 1. take enough cash in euros to allow you to manage restaurants, groceries, train fares etc. 2. Do not count on being able to use any cash machines in Cinque Terre. Our cards would only work at bank machines displaying the Visa Plus symbol. Cirrus will not work. In the Cinque Terre all the Bancomat machines are Credit Agricole that have Cirrus but do not have Visa Plus. 3. If you get stuck, take the train to La Spezia and go directly to the Deutsche Bank, 9, Via Del Carmine.

Posted by
2262 posts

The sky is falling? We had no trouble at all with debit and credit cards at restaurants and ATM's. I would suspect that your bank/card issuer was not made aware of your travels, but it's just a hunch.

Posted by
2 posts

This was not the problem. I think you were lucky and have a compatible card. I have seen many people in front of bank machines here, their cards not working. Our Royal Bank of Canada cards will only work in Visa Plus machines, and they do no seem to exist on the Cinque Terre.

Posted by
32405 posts

nicki,

I'm somewhat surprised to hear about your experience in the Cinque Terre, as that's far different than what I've found after many visits. I've used both a TD Canada Trust ATM/Debit card as well as cards from two different B.C.-based credit unions (which I believe are affiliated with Cirrus) to obtain cash at ATM's in both Monterosso and Riomaggiore without any problems.

A few thoughts on the points you mentioned......

  • Many of the businesses in the C.T. (restaurants and grocery stores) are small family run operations, and those typically don't accept credit or debit cards anyway. Even though hotels in the five towns may accept credit cards, they usually prefer cash payments (and may provide a discount with cash). The smaller Afittacamere in some of the towns are cash only.
  • I've found that it's usually not possible to make direct POS Debit card payments anywhere in Europe. I can't even use my primary debit card in the U.S., so I just adjust to the reality and use whichever payment method does work (cash is always good!).
  • I've purchased rail tickets both at the staffed ticket counter in Monterosso (and indeed all over Italy) as well as at Kiosks using credit cards, and had no problems whatsoever.

This is one reason why it's often a good idea to carry at least two ATM cards as well as two credit cards. I always like to have a backup as I've experienced problems with my primary ATM card in the past, and that's when I found that having a backup card was crucial.

Did you notify your financial institutions that you'd be travelling abroad?

Posted by
3522 posts

When I was last in Italy, there were a couple days where nearly every bank owned ATM had a sign on it that stated the Visa/PLUS network was unavailable that day. Cirrus/MasterCard cards did still work at those ATMs without issue. It could be you just happened to hit one of the network interruptions.

I had 2 cards, one with Cirrus from one bank and the other with PLUS from a different bank so was able to get cash as needed. Cirrus/MasterCard seemed to work better over all than Visa/PLUS on my last two trips to Europe when it came to getting ATM cash.

Posted by
101 posts

I'm so glad to read this before I leave home in 4 weeks. I also back with Royal. bank. Last month I took my niece to Seattle and in major stores her royal debit would not work so auntie had to use her CC. I will check those locators but I can imagine they work with visa credit cards and not our debit at worst. Not ideal to take out a cash advance on CC yikes. $$$

Posted by
147 posts

We will be in Monterosso in early July for 5 nights. From this topic I am sensing that we should bring quite a bit of Euros to pay for most things?

Posted by
16895 posts

Jon, I don't think that "take a lot of cash to the Cinque Terre" is necessarily the take-away message from this discussion, since many travelers have no problem with the ATMs there. However, it does make sense to plan ahead for known expenses, such as if you have to pay your hotel in cash. Take out as much cash as your limit allows each time you visit an ATM, both to minimize stops and since you're not 100% sure where the next opportunity will be. In general, you will use cash more in Italy than at home. If you need a lot of cash, Deutsche Bank machines are very generous, as much as your own bank limit allows.

Anecdotally, I can't recall seeing cash machines in Europe that take only MasterCard or only Visa; they usually take both, unless they're not international at all and just take their own brand of card.

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