What’s the best way to book hotels for an Italian break?

Simon Calder answers your questions on refunds, the French quarantine chaos and the benefits of having an Irish passport

Northern heights: one of today’s readers is considering a trip to Lake Como (Getty)

Q We’re thinking of heading to Italy on Saturday. Flights to Naples are fully booked, so we are thinking of Rome. A return flight is around £150 if we fly early morning. There we would hire a car and possibly head south to Amalfi or north to Lake Como.

British Airways says we can refund flights if it falls through. But with hotels, is it best to do something like booking.com where you lock in the price and pay on arrival, rather than risk paying upfront and losing the money?

Name supplied

A Travelling to Italy in late August looks tempting. Of the major Mediterranean destinations, it appears to be doing best in terms of keeping coronavirus under control. At a time when everyone is feeling jittery because of spikes in infection rates, Italy looks a good bet in the sweepstakes that travel has become.

Both the Amalfi Coast and the Italian Lakes are likely to be uncommonly rewarding this August, because the usual summer crowds have vanished. But I hope I can persuade you to adjust your precise travel plans.

If Naples flights are full, Rome is a perfectly good gateway – but nothing would persuade me to drive from the Italian capital down to the Amalfi Coast. Take a fast train to the city of Salerno instead, and use the excellent and reliable buses that swerve along the beautiful coast road. You will be able to enjoy the scenery rather than worrying about what is around the next corner.

At this time of year, though, I would head for the lakes. Not only are they fresh and cool (at least compared with locations further south), fares are likely to be a lot lower to Milan than to Rome. You can also treat yourselves to a day or two in the fine and cultured city of Milan, again largely devoid of tourists.

In terms of hotels: many travellers take advantage of the opportunity provided by online travel agents to cancel without penalty (which is what “pay on arrival” amounts to), but I believe it is unfair to hotels. They may hold a room for you and turn down other customers, only for you to no-show. This is especially damaging since they are having such an awful year. Better, I believe, to book as you go along. Which this summer should prove no problem at all.

For the vast majority of places you will travel to, it’s best to be Irish (PA)

Q A pleasing thud on the doormat this morning announced the arrival of my Irish passport. Being a British resident with a UK passport and Irish ancestry, I successfully applied for the Irish equivalent in order to maintain my EU citizenship post-Brexit. Does the Irish passport make the UK one redundant? Will there be any situation when showing the British passport rather than the Irish one will prove beneficial – countries wider afield that give UK passport holders advantages not offered to Irish/EU passports?

My wife and I are lucky enough to be able to travel during the bleak midwinter following the England Test cricket team, so we enter countries well beyond Europe on a regular basis. Basically, can I now safely lock my UK passport away, for use only in an emergency?

John N

A For anyone who expects to travel significantly in Europe over the next 10 years and can qualify on grounds of ancestry, an EU passport will be invaluable – and the ideal variety for UK residents will be an Irish travel document. At arrival points to the Common Travel Area (CTA, comprising the UK, Ireland, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), CTA passports are treated equally.

For the vast majority of locations, there will be no benefit in carrying a British passport rather than an Irish one. Indeed, when the EU’s Electronic Travel Information and Authorisation System (Etias) is introduced in a year or two, an Irish passport will save you time and money as well as hassle. You also need have no worries about the extra time needed before your passport runs out; it is valid for travel anywhere in the European Union up to and including the date of expiry.

What about third countries? Well, during the UK’s membership of the European Union, many passport/visa arrangements were concluded on an EU-wide basis. It is a safe assumption that many of these will stay in place, so using your British passport won’t necessarily be a disadvantage.

But as new deals are signed, EU benefits are not all available for those of us confined to one passport. For example, the region around Russia’s most beautiful city, St Petersburg, now has a free online visa for EU citizens, but it does not apply to the UK.

However, there are some Commonwealth nations where a British passport confers more benefits than a European Union document: New Zealand, host nation for the Women’s Cricket World Cup early in 2022, allows UK visitors to stay visa-free for six months – twice as long as EU citizens. But for the vast majority of places you might ever want to go, it’s best to be Irish.

Eurostar passengers arrive back in the UK from Paris (EPA)

Q A quick question that has just come up in the beer garden. Why was the France quarantine time set at 4am? Nobody seems to know the answer.

Scott B

A When quarantine was first introduced on 8 June, it came into effect at midnight (at the end of 7 June). When Spain was suddenly put on the no-go list on the evening of 25 July, the same timing applied. But that was not regarded as ideal because some flights were scheduled to touch down at UK airports just before and around midnight. There was ambivalence about the exact status of the passengers in question – should they self-isolate for two weeks?

The government wanted to avoid uncertainty when first Belgium and later France, the Netherlands and Malta lost their quarantine-exempt status. So the time was moved to 4am – a time when no planes are due to land at UK airports. Neither are there any Eurostar rail arrivals for hours on either side of the early hours.

But Eurotunnel and the ferries operate around the clock, which caused some heated discussions on Friday about the exact meaning of the 4am deadline yesterday morning. The car-carrying operator, Eurotunnel, concluded that if all UK immigration formalities (which take place on French soil) were completed by 4am, returning holidaymakers were safe while still in Calais.

For ferry operators, though, it was not so clear: did the deadline apply to entering British territorial waters, or on arrival in a UK port, or when passengers had set foot (or car wheel) on British soil?

A late decision was made by the government that the measure was whether the ship was tied up at a UK port by 4am. As a result, Stena Line dispatched the sailing from Hook of Holland to Harwich half an hour earlier and accelerated the journey to arrive by 3.45am.

Why a Saturday? Well, tens of thousands of holidaymakers wish the no-go rule had been applied from Sunday instead – because Saturday is the main “changeover” day for holidaymakers, it would have made life much easier.

Sunday was the UK government’s original plan, but the devolved administrations – led by Scotland – insisted they would impose it from 4am on Saturday whatever. To present a unified front, ministers in London agreed to the Saturday deadline.

Email your question to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder