What the heck is going on in Cinque Terre? How far in advance do you need to book a room?

On sites like Booking.com you have to remember that when they say there are no rooms available that just means that there are no rooms released to them that are available. Hotels must pay a fee to Booking.com and quite often hold back rooms they believe they can book themselves and save the fee. If booking.com says no room always try direct with the hotel/B&B. In looking for rooms for my upcoming trip I found that in about 50% of the cases where booking.com said no rooms available the hotel/B&B's own website said rooms were available.

Bob, thanks for your comments about booking.com. I suspected that might be the case, but I have found it to be a useful service in the past because in most cases you can reserve something with no penalty for cancellation -- so you can at least book something as a backup/insurance in case you can't find something better.

But in this case I emailed directly to the owners of three rooms/apartments in Vernazza, and in all three cases they wrote back and said the rooms/apartments that I wanted were already booked.

You could also look at venere.com for rooms and then cross reference on tripadvisor.com. The client reviews on venere are valid because the reviewer must have stayed at the property to comment.

I have been in Le Cinque Terre twice, once in 1994 and this past July. In 1994 this area was relatively undiscovered and quaint. Last summer it was JAMMED, especially Vernazza, which was shoulder to shoulder and touristy. We had r/t train reservations from Pisa to La Spezia to Vernazza and couldn't board the train in La Spezia. Every car on the train was JAMMED and we had to wait for the next one. Monterossa was crowded, as well.

Buon viaggio,

The nth Cinque Terre article in the NY Times may have something to do with it. The CT are lovely, but this is a mania!

Why not stay in Lerici? It's beautiful and not totally touristy, yet has the flavor of Liguria. You can take the ferry across the Gulf to Portovenere and the Cinque Terre. You can see the little fishing village of Tellaro by bus or hiking, and you can hike the Parc of Montemarcello or the Island of Palmaria.

The website A Path to Lunch does articles on this area.

It is a bit too early for hotels on the Cinque Terre to have put all their inventory up. My experience (quite lengthy) with Booking (my favorite and otherwise beloved reservation service that I have used for virtually all my last 10-15 trips) is that many hotels will not put up inventory until 6-5 months before the desired date.

A good trick to check whether a hotel is really fully booked or just waiting to release more inventory is to try search for rooms earlier than the date you want to stay. If a hotel has plenty of rooms available for, say, early June but none for September, in the case of Cinque Terre or places that don't have a clearly defined season in all likelihood the hotel is just holding inventory back.

Try Monterosso.

roger,

To begin with, I agree with Roberto that you also might try Monterosso. It's a larger town and therefore has a greater number of both smaller private lodgings as well as more conventional hotels. You could also try Manarola, as there are some nice places there.

Your experience is not uncommon, as I often start booking in February for travel in September, and I've also had some difficulties getting a room at my favourite hotel in Monterosso. Vernazza seems to be over-hyped in some of the travel publications, which results in higher demand for the rooms there. Rather than use websites like booking.com, I prefer to eliminate the middleman and deal directly with the hotels.

How are you choosing your hotel choices - Guidebook, online or ??? You might have a look at the following websites, as you may find a place that has a vacancy at the time you'll be travelling:

http://www.rebuildmonterosso.com/p/visitors-information.html

http://savevernazza.com/visiting-vernazza/

I'm not sure when these lists were last updated, but it will give you some information to work with.

Good luck and hope you find something soon!

We stayed in Monterosso in May last year and liked it better than Vernazza because it has the beach and more restaurants/shops. We booked the Hotel Colonnina (in the RS book) in Feb. I might try emailing properties, instead of just booking.com. My co-worker booked the same place last Fall with just a few weeks' notice.

Did you try these places in Manarola directly?

arp air, Ca' Andrean, Marina Piccolo, La Torretta?

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. Some of you suggested to email directly to some places, and I had already written to a few places without success. Part of my problem was that I needed rooms for 3 couples and I was hoping that we could all stay at the same place and have at least one room with a terrace or balcony. Anyway, I was successful in booking two rooms with balconies and an apartment nearby (all in Vernazza)! I hope it's not too crowded there in September this year. Last time we there in May 2012, we stayed in Manarola and it was not crowded. Cinque Terre is my favorite place on the planet.