We are planning our first trip to Italy in Sept and I am getting ready to made some dinner reservations. When we were in Spain we enjoyed the local custom of having dinner much later than we do here in the states. We usually made our reservations for 10:00pm. What are the dinner hours in Italy? We will be in Florence, Siena, and Lake Como. <BR>Thank you for your input. <BR>

We usually ate 8:30pm or -9 pm. We often ate at 8pm to enjoy the undivided attention from our wait-person to explain the menu to us.

Gail, <BR>Thanks so much. I'll make our reservations today. <BR>mickey

They do eat later in Italy. It seemed like we always got hungry early and entered a deserted restaurant. By the time we left it was full. At least we got a great table and good service. My advice: Eat when you are hungry. If you are not hungry, don't eat. Real simple.

It's fairly common in Italy to have an espresso and perhaps a pastry in the late afternoon and wait for dinner until 9 pm or later. If you're making reservations in Siena, try to book the Cane e Gatto and take whatever time they have available. (It's closed Thursdays, an unusual day in Italy)

Sometimes restaurants in Italy close after lunch and don't re-open for dinner until 7:00pm, to give you an idea of what an "early" dinner time would be.

My experience in Venice and Florence is that if we dined before 8:30 pm the only people in the dining room were Americans. Since you like the local customs, I would also say 8:30 or later.

Mickey, <BR>Not only that, but a lot of the restaurants we ate at only opened for dinner at 8:30. So if there are a lot of Americans eating and they are open before that, beware that it may be a "tourist trap". <BR>Ciao, <BR>luigi

To further confuse you: <BR> <BR> If you come to the North of England <BR> you'll find that a lot of people refer <BR> to Lunch as "Dinner" & Dinner as "Tea". <BR>