Villages of Italy tour - dinner reservations on our "free nights"?

I was on this tour in 2022. Montefalco is tiny and there are only 2 or 3 restaurants. During the orientation walk, your guide will point them out. Most of our group ended up going to the same restaurant. I don't remember the name but the food and atmosphere was great.

In Chianti, I believe you will have dinner at the hotel both nights so no need to think about reservations.

We didn't eat in Levanto. Most of us spent the day exploring the Cinque Terre towns and ate dinner there before catching the train back to Levanto.

Mary, thanks for your reply. Sounds like you never made reservations but were fine without them? I'm also curious if you loved the tour, and whether carrying your luggage was ever more than 15 or so minutes at a time? I am fairly fit and can easily lift my backpack (weighing about 19 lbs) and carry it but after walking around the house with it for 10 minutes as a trial run, I am very ready to take it off! I'm hoping we won't have to walk with it more than 15 minutes or so at one time.

I was on this tour in 2017. I honestly don't remember where we ate when. I looked at the itinerary for Lucca and it says that you'll have an orientation the arrival day (23 May) and a local guide walking tour the 2nd day (24 May). If your RS guide can't (unlikely) give you some suggestions, the local guide surely should be able to. BTW, the olive farm lunch on the 24th will be good but very casual and definitely not fancy.

About the walking with your backpack, I'm sorry to say that there will be some situations where you will have to walk longer than you want to because the bus can't go close to the hotels in many of the towns visited. A few times luggage was removed from the bus and taken to the hotels using smaller vehicles.

Keep in mind that these are HILL towns. You often have to walk up and down significant grades or many stairs lacking any kind of hand rails. That could be a challenge even without schlepping luggage.

Believe it when the daily itinerary says something like this: "Strenuous walking: 2–8 miles throughout the day with lots of hills, stairs, and uneven terrain." Or this: "Moderate walking: 2–6 miles throughout the day with some hills and stairs."

For that tour I was a fool and decided to wear my Saucony sneakers instead of the ankle high boots I normally wear to support my ankles. For example, the truffle hunt took place in a steeply sloped field with big dirt clods. It took me so long to pick my way down through the very rough terrain that I totally missed seeing the dog in action close up. Going back up the hill was easier but still slow. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn my ankle on one of the hard, dried out clods of dirt.

I was there in June but made no dinner reservations and ate very well. Ask the guide for recommendations on where to eat, where the best gelato is, etc.

I LOVED the tour. I was my first tour (and vacation) since the pandemic put a halt to my travels. It was a more laid-back, small-town, food-and-wine centric tour. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Didn't love the visit to Carrara marble quarry but that was it. The only place that was truly crowded was Siena as we were there just days before the palio race. Most places were quiet and not crowded. But things have changed since and I understand that crowds are back in Europe in 2023.

I don't remember any long walks with luggage (or at least any that left me with bad memories). But I am fit (run 5 miles every day and get 20,000+ steps per day) so my definition of hard or exhausting my be different than yours. It was the heat that got me (yes there was a big heat wave in Italy while we were there). Some tour members got heat rashes that looked bad. A couple of us experienced heat exhaustion. The bus air conditioned. All hotels had A/C. Take it easy with the wine when it's extremely hot, drink lots of water, wear sunscreen, and eat lots of gelato!

We have never made a reservation in Italy in probably 20 years of visiting there, okay maybe that is not true, I'm sure we have made a reservation once or twice, but unless you have your sights set on some special restaurant in a special town Italy rarely requires a reservation. There is always something somewhere, the further off the tourist main drag you go the better the food and experience. There will always be the exception of a busy place that will turn you away, but there is also always another option.

The one time we were seeking specific restaurants was in Florence, and only because we made friends with the bar owner during apertivo and asked him for some local recommendations, he wrote them on a slip of paper and we got a cab and gave them to the driver, he drove to the first one and shouted out to them "table for two?" in Italian, they shook their head no, and he drove to the next one, same thing but table available, we thanked him and entered the restaurant, all family style sitting on large tables with local Italians who all asked us how we knew about their favorite restaurant????

Use google maps before your trip, type in the towns you will be in then search for "restaurants" see how many there are, get an idea beforehand, look at the pictures of the place and the food, if you get nervous star some on your map and use them when you get there, but half the fun is wandering and exploring, but maybe not so much for you if you are on a tour, you may not be that adventurous, it all depends

Things are much busier than pre Covid times. While I have not been on this tour I was in Orvieto this past Nov. we did have reservations for dinner but not lunch. Even though it was early Nov it was pretty busy. You will find something but it may be busy. You may need to wander a bit.

Enjoy loved that town

We did this tour in October of 2019. It was fabulous and like you, wondered about reservations. We did make reservations at all the places, BUT, we found that it was definitely not needed because there are so many wonderful places to eat on this tour. We wound up cancelling all of them except Montefalco. We had a wonderful meal there and I could imagine that without that particular reservation, we might have had difficulty getting in. The town is verrrry small but absolutely beautiful.

L’Alchemista is the restaurant hot spot in Montefalco. Reservations are typically necessary.

Yes, L’Alchemista was the restaurant we went to in Montefalco. I highly recommend going and making reservations...delicious food and a
gorgeous atmosphere.