Trouble finding rooms for May

Have you tried using www.booking.com? I just tried 4 nights in the middle of May in Orvieto and 64 properties out of the 92 listed had vacancies. There were a number of properties with very good reviews and reasonably priced.

You can see where the properties are by using the map feature on the left side of the page that shows your search results.

Thanks for the info, I thought today I might just have to go off the Rick Steves Grid this time!

booking.com is a good site. All reviews are made by people who have stayed at the properties. They give you a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Judy,

If you're not able to find any lodgings at the hotels listed in the guidebook, one method I often use is research hotels on Trip Advisor and then book directly on the hotel website. As the others have suggested, booking.com is another option (I've used that a few times but prefer to deal directly with the hotels).

Good luck!

I love to deal directly with the hotels, but when you've hit about the 6th one with no results, it's time for a booking service and some creative flexibility. I use www.Booking.com all the time, but also www.VRBO.com, as they will display places available on your dates. Saves a lot of time.

Yes this is very frustrating especially when traveling with another couple and you need two rooms. I thought I was seasoned at this, but things have changed. I am trying to to book with the hotels directly and hitting a wall every time. So far on a two week trip we only have our rooms in Rome set. I got another rejection from a hotel in Monterosa and the hotels don't make it easy by having to make a request and then wait. A big process. So I will start working on Bookings.com because this is really taking a long process to book rooms for four cities.

Venere.com is another website that allows you set it so that it shows you only those places that have openings for your dates.

Here's another plug for booking.com. You get instant confirmation. And, I'm not surprised about your problem. I started lining up our May reservations for Puglia back in November. Even then, some places were already showing no availability.

We always use venere.com or booking.com and have only positive comments to share with each website. Occasionally, we deal directly with a hotel website if we have stayed there before or they might offer an amenity not available through the booking sites. An example would be the Hotel Bologna in Pisa, where they provide free shuttle service if you book directly with their website. They brought us from the airport free of charge upon arrival and then took us to the train station when we departed.

Several years ago we spent three nights in Orvieto and it was definitely one night too many. Additionally, almost everything closes at 21:00 (9 pm). The staff at the Hotel Corso was terrific, though.

Buon viaggio,

I, for one, do not use booking.com because I went there to check on a place in Vernazza, which I have stayed at before. Booking.com showed no availability. I went to the website of same place and in less than 24 hours, I had my choice of several rooms, so of course, I got one.
2 days later, out of curiosity I went to booking.com and it showed "last room rented 1 hour ago" for the place I am staying at (which 2 days prior showed no rooms). I just don't trust them.
I use bedandbreakfast.com, venere.com, airbnb.com, for booking, and tripadvisor to see the place, then book directly with website.

Charlotte. The reason that would have happened is that the hotel controls the release of rooms onto booking.com. Some hotels hold rooms back for direct sale. In your case the hotel released some rooms to booking.com after you first looked and they were snapped up before you looked again. To imply the site is untrustworthy is way over the top!

mph is right, hotels can release rooms to booking sites when they wish. I use booking.com a lot, but for subsequent stays I usually book directly with the hotel.

It's always harder to stick with just Rick Steves recommendations as they go fast. Also, there's no way he could visit every good place in any city. I always glance at top rated places on TripAdvisor and Booking and can usually find some highly-rated places for fairly cheap.

I've found venere.com to be good for Italy too. Now is definitely the time to book. I liked the Hotel Duomo in Orvieto.

As others said, www.booking.com is good and Chani mentions www.venere.com I've also used them.
Take your time, really look at all the options, and make sure you understand about deposits and extra fees. Some offer free wi-fi, others charge. A B &B is a great alternate to a "hotel". We stayed in a nice B & B in Orvieto just last May, found them on booking.com