I have another question, please. Would someone name hotels where you have to hand over your passport at the checkin and they keep it until checkout. I want to avoid those, too.

It's the law in Italy. Sometimes they hand it right back after recording the info, or you can pick it up later in the day.I've never had one held for my entire visit.

You certainly have interesting hotel critera! <BR><BR>I have never heard of this. All Italian hotels will take your passport when you check in, because they must fill out paperwork with your information. They will usually complete it within an hour or so, at which time they will return your passport to you. It's a good idea to make copies of the main pages of your passport in case of loss or theft anyway, so you can carry these for the short time the hotel desk is making use of your actual passport.

As you add your criteria for hotels, it seems you are opposed to any hotels that do anything differently from what you they do at home. I'm sure some will say I'm being rude here, and I really don't mean to be, but if you are opposed to the standard customs of other countries, you need to seriously ask yourself why you are traveling. <BR><BR>I've stayed in dozens and dozens of hotels in Italy. All have taken my passport on check-in. A few have given it right back, but the vast majority kept it over night or at least a couple of hours. It is there custom and their law. Why fight it?

I have never left my passport at the desk. I always say I will wait for them to copy the information. It never takes more than a few minutes. Then I take my passport and I'm off to the room. No one has ever argued with me.

Thank you all again.

It is the law in Italy that hotels request a guest's passport. The hotel is obligated to inform the local police station -- &quot;questura&quot; -- immediately of the guest's passport information (name, nationality, DOB, etc.). This goes for everybody. This law dates back to Mussolini's fascist Italy and the Italians thought it was a good public security measure and that's why they have never changed it. You can't get around it, but you certainly don't have to let them hang on to it for an entire day. Tell them at check in to copy the info. down right then and there on the standard form they hand in to the questura. They'll do so and if they don't, protest. However, they have to take the info. down so you can't avoid just ANY hotel.

When you check in to an Italian hotel, they will ask for a document. It doesn't have to be a passport - Italians won't normally have a passport if they're travelling within their own country. Hotels often like to keep the document as security, but they have no legal right to do so; if you ask for it back after they have completed the paperwork, they will always give it back. Cheap hotels will sometimes ask you to pay in advance if you leave no security and are leaving the next morning, but this shouldn't be a problem.

Along these lines, on an overnight train the (I don't know what you call him, conductor?) man who sits in the train car hallway watching out for things &amp; smoking cigarettes ;-) takes your passpost and holds it until morning. My friends who live in Europe had warned me this would happen, and was standard procedure (maybe because we were crossing a border in the middle of the night?) so I wasn't concerned.

Call me naive, but I feel safer with my passport being held by the hotel than taking a chance of it being stolen or lost as I'm out sightseeing. I've never had a problem with the hotel holding my passport.

Thank you for more responses. I am going to follow how Ann1 does.

SaraLee, I think you are setting yourself up for an unhappy trip. If you are already planning on making a mini-scene at checkin you are setting a tone of you against &quot;them&quot;. First the shower curtains now the passport hold, you had better loosen up your standards or you will be miserable, or make the people you encounter miserable.