ITALY Readers's Tips - Hotels in Europe have forever kept passports overnight.t freaks out North Americans, but it has always been a fact of life.olice used to come around in the middle of the night and look at the passports (you may have seen that in many old French and Italian movies. Nowadays it is simply a convenience for the frontdesk staff to hold the passport before completing administrative work during later, more quiet hours, or to hold them against payments old habits die hard, and most Europeans don't mind. But you can, as you did, just ask to get the passport back immediately, and you usually will get it as you suggested, a credit card may be an alternative instead if it is a matter of a holding security against payment. So it is not a big deal, it just surprises North Americans but there is no sinister element to it, just an ageold practice that is changing, slowly in some places.

Hi rk, Almost all, if not all, European countries require hotels to provide passport information on all guests to the local police. Some of them will just give you a form to fill out when you register.Others will ask to hold your passport. Make a copy of the front two pages.That will suffice. Hi, just wondering if it would be neccessary to prebook tickets to see the leaning tower in mid January. thanks

If you are wanting to go up in the Tower, then yes.If you don't have a reservation, you won't be able to go up inside the tower.

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