italian hotels

But I have never heard of a hotel room costing several thousand Euro either. Most hotels will accept credit cards but often will offer a discount for cash. If staying at a hotel for a couple of days, it is easy to get enough cash for an ATM to pay the hotel. You can check in with a credit card but pay cash any time. You get cash as you need it from an ATM via a debit card. In all of our travels we pay cash except for the last day or two when we are managing our cash so that we return home with 100 to 200 Euro for the next trip. Then we use a credit card for a few items. We may hit the ATM every other day for 500E or so or as needed. Put it in a money belt and not worry about it. It not uncommon for use to have a 500 Euro or more split between the two of us. And if we need more we carry more. The most I have taken from an ATM is 750 Euro. That was a wad of money.

As Frank said, you're talking about hundreds, not thousands, for the typical hotel stay (particularly for the places that insist on cash; really expensive places will usually take cards). This is easy to do - just plan ahead by figuring out what you'll need, and if it's more than your daily limit, take out two separate withdrawals and store it in your money belt. Once I did stay in 1 hotel for 10 nights, and I wanted to pay in cash but didn't want to carry that much around (that would have been 700 euros - at the time, about 1100 dollars, as it was when the dollar was at its lowest vs the euro). So, I arranged to pay for 5 nights halfway through, and the other 5 nights upon departure.

I have booked hotels in Italy for our trip in September and none of the ones I contacted demanded cash only but many did offer a cash discount which we will take advantage of.
If a hotel were to demand cash payment up front, I would offer a credit card to hold as a deposit and pay cash as I get it from the ATMs. If a hotel would not accept this arrangement I always look elsewhere. There are just too many hotels in Europe to chose from.

Thank you to everyone. My reference to thousands was for the entire vacation. I realize that you can do numerous withdrawals of limited amounts, but had hoped to hear something a little easier than daily or every other day, searching for and locating an ATM. When we visited England and Austria, we simply used a credit card for all lodging and meals whenever possible. I read that generally the credit card firm would utilize a fair exchange rate and it kept things simple.

I guess easy is in the eye of the beholder. What I described previously I view as very easy. We never look for an ATM. We let them find us. We start the day saying we need to hit an ATM. Sometime during the day as we wonder about we will see one. ATMs are as common in Europe as they are in Cincinnati. We prefer to use the ones that are attached to a bank so we tend to watch for the big bank signs on the building. With a no fee debit card plus 5% cash discount, the savings is significant over the length of the trip. For us, cash is the easiest way to do it. Don't have to worry about credit card security.

Paying cash whenever possible also saves the percentage add-on that most credit cards charge for foreign currency transactions, which on a long trip can be meaningful savings.

All the more reason to find out well in advance if your CC will charge an extra foreign transaction fee. Bank of America charges it, but Capital One credit cards do not. Guess which one we use in Italy?

Dan-Frank and Charlie are both right. ATMs are everywhere and using one takes only a few minutes, so I've never understood why some people find it onerous. However, if you do, you can certainly choose hotels that take credit cards. As has also been said, you can get both ATM cards and credit cards with low or no fees.