ankhboy

Please consider Mantova Italy! It's near Verona, and has many cute streets, restaurants, architecture, etc, but mostly has an outstanding cathedral with tons of art, it is enormous and has the largest non-column supported space of any of the ancient cathedrals. It is breathtaking in scope. Also a fine Palace there, Palazzo Te. Several other significant churches. And on a holiday Monday in June, there were no tourists and almost no people there!! Eden Hotel is a few miles away, and quite good for E54/nt with free extensive breakfast.

Paul1950

As others have pointed out, it just depends on your travel style. I don't like to spend time looking for accomodations, and I like to have an idea of what my accomodations include and where they are located--location is of prime importance to me. So I normally prebook. Other folks have different priorities, so they don't prebook. It's your time and money and personality that's involved. There is no right or wrong way, only your way and what suits you.

norrisken

logos999 thanks again and the cable car sounds like a great idea.
ankhboy Mantova is on our way south and would make a nice break or an overnight. Thank you
Paul1950 the big question for me was would there be rooms available. I guess I have a travel style but I'm sure what you would call it. Cheap? We cruise alot also.
One thing I really love about the forums are folks can express their thoughts and ideas and we can choose to use them or not. Some people get touchy if someone else disagrees with them though. I like differing opinions. It's how I can grow in my ideas.

shocco67

Will winging it work in mid-December in the Romantic Road region?

logos999

Christmas holidays start 2 to 3 days before Christmas. No problem finding rooms before they start. Between Christmas and Jan 6. you'll find a few places closed, except for New Years which is peak season everywhere. During the christmas week, most people stay at home. The first two weeks in January are peak season in the alps but not in and around Rothenburg.

So except for New Years eve and probably quite a few closed places "winging it" will work well.

suze

If you decide to "wing it" I would still do a LOT of research in advance online, so you have an idea of nice places, in your price range, to stay along your traveling route (even traveling with their email address or phone so you could reserve 1 day in advance).

Nothing wrong with being spontaneous, but personally I wouldn't like to find myself spending too much time wandering around each new town, dragging my suitcase, looking for a place to stay without any plan or idea where I was going.

(I do know as already mentioned tourist information at train stations often is a good resource for finding immediately available rooms.)