Hi. My fiance and I are getting married in Florence on Sept 1st. We have our first weeks reservations in Florence.
My question is this:
We are wanting to go to Cinque Terre, Bellagio, Venice and Rome. We will be there for 3 weeks. Do you think we will be making a huge mistake if we go without reservations and just wing it? We don't want to held prisoners by an agenda. If we want to stay on longer some place or skip out a day early we don't want to have to worry about cancelling reservations.
We know we will have a wonderful time wherever we are.
Does anyone have any suggestions on finding hotels once you arrive in town?
Thanks,
Kristi

When we travel we only make reservations for the first and the last night of our stay. Of coarse if we are going to stay at our first destination for a longer time we would book all the nights. We rent a car and know where we want to drive to and what to see. When we arrive in a town we go to the tourist office and they find us a hotel room. We did this recently in Italy at the end of June and beginning of July and we did not have any trouble finding a hotel. We found a gem in Chianti, Orvieto and in Todi. Also it did not take up a lot of time. Sometimes we would go into a hotel we were driving by and get a room. We stayed in great places and love doing this as it gives us more freedom. Last summer we went to Paris and my brother-in-law and his wife decided to come with us at the last minute. I thought I got them a room at our hotel via email, but when we arrived there was no room for them. Our hotel got them a room at another hotel down the street, and this was in the beginning of July. That being said, you are going to very popular places and you do not want to get stuck. You can take a list of hotels with you and call before you arrive to see if they have availability. We have done this several times. A lot of people do not like to travel this way, because they want a certain hotel and do not like the uncertainty. It depends on how flexible you are. Don't forget to ask if there is a B&B in the area (with bath). If you ask for a hotel that is all they will recommend.

How flexible are you on your hotel requirements/ budget?

If you have very specific requirements - private bath, central location, specific amenities, specific budget - you may well have trouble finding what you;re looking for on the spot.

If you're more flexible on location, private bath, amenities, etc - or if you're flexible about price - and find something fairly early in the day your risk is minimal.

Those destinations in Sep.--you will need reservations for the places you would want.

We have set some limits on ourselves, but we do not mind if we have to stay at a less desirable hotel in one place and then splurge in another. We don't expect to spend a lot of time in our rooms. We both travel for a living and spend a lot of time in hotels so nothing really suprises us or dissapoints because we do it so often. I just keep looking at places on the internet but I am scared to actually book. Call me fickle>
Does having a car make it easier to find places or just going to the tourist info boards at the train stations?