Booking for Accomodations and Train for July?

well, the cheapest seats on trains start selling out when they go on sale 4 months prior......but don't fret, if you do some slow research (like I would probably look at one segment of the trip a week, not to overwhelm you) you can book as you go, and keep everything in order.....

By only spending 1 night in Naples, it will give you limited time, 2 nights is better, but make sure you have your priorities and know opening/closing times....

For nearly all of your legs you can book high speed train services upto 120 days before travel. The cheapest seats won't allow changes of dates/times or cancellations but there are big savings to be made. They sell quickly on www.trenitalia.com

You cannot tell if the seats will be facing in the direction of travel - the best you can do is book two seats that face each other. That way you and your partner can swap around every so often to avoid sickness. To do this click in the small circle on the website that gives you the option of selecting your own seats. Seats with a grey bar between them face each other (the bar is a table). If you travel business/1st class you can select an option where there are single pairs of seats facing each other so you will not have anyone next to you.

If you leave your accommodation bookings until late April or early May you will be severely limited in your options in some of the places you have chosen as you are going at the height of tourism season. For example, Vernazza on the CT is already 60% booked out for a random night I selected in mid-July on www.booking.com (a huge booking site very popular in Europe).

I would make time or get your travel partner to make time to get some bookings made. It is very simple on sites such as booking.com and venere to plug in your dates and get available options. You can check the reviews and make a decision. For the number of destinations you have you could get this done in a couple of hours. As booking.com do not charge anything up front (and you can cancel upto between 3 days and 2 weeks before your stay depending on the hotel) you can always have another looking in late April and cancel if you find something better.

Naples+its marvelous bay you would need at least 2 full days.
By fast train, you need 1h30 min to get to Rome which would need 4 days, Vatican at the very least 1 day, centre 2 days, roman ruins half day.
By fast train from Rome to Florence, 1h30
Florence would need another 3 days
From Florence to Venice, count 4 hours train
Venice would need 3 days
CT: Cinque terre? 2 full day on the stop
CT: Catania? 2 -3 days
You would probably need to leave off something if you really want to enjoy your vacation.

Don't worry too much. I had problems booking ahead of time with my American credit card so basically booked it that day in the train station and got much cheaper rates than what they were advertising on the site.

If you book ahead for anything using a credit card, be sure your card company knows you are going to be making transactions with European companies. This should eliminate the problem.

On high-speed Italian trains, your reservation is made when you book the ticket, no extra steps or fees.

July is peak travel time, if you put off making reservations until the end of April, you may find some accommodations are sold out, especially true for properties that have only a few rooms.

You can look at booking.com for photos, descriptions, prices, availability, lots of B&Bs are listed. Most useful is the fact that reviews are only done by guests who have stayed at the property.

I agree w/ the above. You need to book your accommodations now! We went in July last year and I was planning at this time and some places were already booked. Look at the reviews on Trip Advisor and look at the hotel's websites and make inquires. choices may also be limited due to your short stays - some have minimum # of days required.

Some places will only take cash, so bring at least 2 ATM cards to get withdrawls. Some B&Bs and restaurants only take cash. You need a pin & chip credit card to buy train tickets from kiosks. So you need cash or wait in a long line to buy from a ticket window. But then there might be a 24 hour train strike and your ticket is no good! if you bought w/ a credit card, you can get a refund on your credit card. But if you bought it w/ cash, you have to wait weeks for them to send you a check. I finally got my refund check in USD!!! But I had trouble cashing it even though it was a Citibank check. So I had to open a Citibank account for them to cash my check! However, if you turn in your unusable ticket w/in 24 hours, you can get a refund. But we were in Cinque Terre and there was no ticket office for us to do that. Had to wait till we got to Rome and by then we had to do the check route. Moral of the story: buy unreserved tickets the day of travel. All the reserved trains which we bought in advance online were running.

Christine. I have never heard of anyone being able to buy tickets cheaper at the station than on the trenitalia website. The worst you will do booking on line is get the ticket at the same price (if you only are booking just before travel). The best you will do is save considerable amounts of money, especially on longer legs.

Unless perhaps you were looking at prices for high speed services online but ended up buying a ticket on the day for a slower intercity or regionale service?