Italy Travel Guide

Review by Pikmin:

In the past I’ve generally relied on the Rough Guide or Let’s Go books for travel advice, holding the opinion that books like Frommer’s were geared more towards older travelers who followed a fixed and possibly boring itinerary. But I’m hoping to return to Italy this year for the first time in 7 years, and am looking forward to seeing how it’s changed, so when I got the chance to check out this book, I was eager to pick it up and start some armchair planning.

Having spent some time with it, I think this book would work really well for either the armchair traveler or anyone planning a trip to Italy in the near future, as it’s really just packed full of useful information for travelers of any budget or style, while at the same time teasing you with beautiful photographs and descriptions. I like the layout in particular, for finding just what you need when you need it: each section starts with a brief and slightly poetic introduction (“Venice is a preposterous monument to both the folly and obstinacy of humankind. It shouldn’t exist, but it does”) , immediately followed by the “Essentials” section, giving you all the necessary logistics of arrival (key phone numbers, public transit, etc). The “Neighborhoods in Brief” is a fantastic way of getting a handle on the different areas of the cities that’s useful in figuring out where you really want to stay (ie., do you want to stay in the funky neighborhood with excellent shopping and local restaurants, or the upscale area near the museums?).

A quick way for me to judge an Italy guidebook is to flip to the section on Venice, a city I adore. This books gets a thumbs-up from me on this section. An accurate assessment of the indecipherable address system (“A maniac must’ve numbered Venice’s buildings”) is accompanied by some good tips on actually finding a specific address. It also accurately assess the romance (or lack thereof) in most gondola rides.

One of the things I liked best about the book was the color photographs – you don’t usually get those in a travel book, at least not this many and of this quality. Since half the pleasure of the travel guide is savoring the planning and anticipation, it succeeds on that level. There’s also a pretty handy pull-out map of Italy at the back of the book with street maps of Venice and Rome on the flip side. These things do make the book heavy, but you can always do what I’ve done, which is cut out the section you’re currently touring, and just take those pages with you when you go out for the day.

Review by Ursiform:

When planning a trip I like to sample the opinion of several guides, as one is rarely complete or entirely aligned to my preferences. I’m planning a trip to Tuscany and Umbria next fall (I’ve been to Florence before), and thought this guide might be a good supplement to the Eyewitness, Michelin, and Lonely Planet guides I already have.

I was surprised at how helpful I found this guide. Like the Michelin guide, it rates key attractions with one to three stars. While I would never plan a trip based on the ratings of a single guidebook, I do find the star ratings helpful in elucidating the author’s opinions in a way that sifting through different adjectives in descriptions isn’t. Unlike the Michelin guide this book groups cities by geography (which is how you would visit them) rather than alphabetically across the whole country. It also has more detail on hotels. In fact, the extensive descriptions of hotels is one of the reasons I found this guide so useful.

While it is proud of it “full color”, the color pictures are added here and there as an accent, and don’t add a lot to the text. The Eyewitness guides are far more useful for their pictures, although they contain less helpful prose. (Seriously, if you are willing to spend the money for a vacation to Italy, invest in several guides up front, they’re cheap compared to the trip itself!)

While I generally thought highly of this guide, it was not without its faults. One that struck me was that in its “Best of Italy” section it lists Todi and Spoleto as the first two entries for “most romantic getaways”; when you get to their listings they are both rated one star, without much said about why they are romantic destinations. Treat this book as one source of many in your planning, and you should be pleased.

Review by William D. Mashburn:

We have used Rick Steves’ travel guides in France, Spain and Central Europe and have found them to be very, very helpful.

While it is true that Rick Steves’ Italy 2010 doesn’t cover the extreme southern part of Italy or Sicily, it covers the areas that we plan to visit, and in that respect, I feel it is fairly comprehensive.

Of course, I would always recommend that one traveling to Italy consult other travel guides such as the Rough Guide to Italy, Frommers’ Italy, and Lonely Planet’s Italy.

We have been successful in getting our local public library to order up-to-date travel guides on Italy, which are useful in planning our trip, but we purchased Rick Steves’ Italy 2010 as the one guide to pack for the trip.

I feel that it is an excellent investment.

William D. Mashburn (Age 75)

Review by Ellen J. Bell:

Rick Steves is specific about what to see, where to stay and what you actually get, what not to miss and how to get to everything. Oh, and how much it will cost. I have used other Steves’ guidebooks, and he is right on the money.

Review by Mark:

This is one of the best travel books I’ve read. Every page has well laid out and well labeled full color pictures to augment the text. Once you look at this it’s hard to go back to a dry, sterile book that’s all text with a handful of color pages in the middle. The information here is clear and easy to read. There is cross-referencing everywhere, for example a page that’s describing a major attraction will tell you where to go in the book to find hotels in that area. There are listings and descriptions for hotels and restaurants in each area, and general travel tips. The introduction to each area of Italy also has an overview of the history and architecture.

Review by M. Natraj:

I’ve been a long-time Lonely Planet fan, believing that text was fine. Why would I need pictures, since I was going to see the places in person anyway? I have since changed my mind completely!

We just returned from a 10-day trip to Italy (mostly Florence and Rome), and I have to say that I absolutely LOVED having this book along. When we went shopping for a guidebook, my husband picked this up and I went straight for the Lonely Planet. I resisted the Eyewitness guide, and we ended up splurging and just buying both. This ended up giving us an entire trip to compare them.

It’s true that it didn’t list a ton of places to see in each, but we didn’t really feel the book was too lacking. If we had known our itinerary when we went book shopping, we probably would have picked up Florence/Tuscany and Rome instead of the complete Italy, but this did help us choose our final destinations. One thing we really liked in the listings was the “Star Sight” marks. With the Lonely Planet books, the hardest part is trying to pick out which of the sights are really worth seeing and which are only so-so. In the Eyewitness book, not only did we have the Stars to guide us, but we also had the pictures to give us an idea if something was going to match our tastes or not.

By far, the best thing about this book was the information about the sights. I got so much more out of the trip by learning about the places we visited while we were there. From the food to the architecture to the history, it was so much more interesting. The clinching comparison between our two guides was the Roman Forum. The Eyewitness book had a sketch showing the layout of the forum with variou areas labelled with a brief description. A more detailed explanation of the various sites appeared on the following page. In contrast, our Lonely Planet tried despearately to explain the locations in prose (“to your left upon entering from this street…” and “across from that stands the remains of…”), and in the end, the only description they gave of each structure/area was its name! I really enjoyed having some background on what the places were and why they were significant.

The only downside of the book is in planning the logistics. There’s not a lot of information on how to get from city to city (or airport to city), and the admission prices to museums and attractions are surprisingly absent. However, with the blossoming of online travel sites, a lot of this information is easily available from other sources.

The city maps were a little confusing when crossing from one map to the next (I don’t think there’s any overlap), but I appreciated having the sights labelled even when they weren’t described in the listings. As we walked past a large church or government building, it was nice to be able to see what it was. The color coding of points of interest was good for walking, since we could tailor our route to pass by more interesting spots.

We didn’t use the hotel listings, since I researched our hotels online, but we did take advantage of a few restaurant suggestions. There aren’t a lot of budget listings, but the ones we tried were fantastic! Off the beaten path, we never would have found them otherwise, and we appreciated having budget sit-down options. The budget listings in our other guide tended to list lunch spots and self-service eateries.

In general, I really think this book helped “make” our trip. The whole time, it was like having a guide with us, pointing things out and explaining what was going on.

Review by Book Dork:

I bought this book while preparing for a trip to Rome, Florence and Venice. Some helpful things included:

- Maps

- Traveling tips (currency, cultural customs, etc…)

- Museum and attraction information

- Hotels

- Restaurants

- Contact information for all places mentioned

The only criticism I had of it was on it’s section regarding getting to and from Venice. The only options it gives is water taxi! Look into the regular bus line that leaves from the plaza west of the train station. Less than 5 euros to go to the airport (a lot better than 90 euros on a water taxi). Or, like we did, you can take a regular taxi for 35 euros.

This is definitely a great place to start and a great tool to use on your trip.

Review by Emma:

I’m going to Italy for the second time in a few days, so I picked up this book, and it is GREAT. Not only does it give great suggestions about traveling, it gives you the history of every place you are going to. It offers advice on tours to take and where to head throughout the country, and also includes so many beautiful and colorful pictures throughout the book. It also includes a bunch of maps for all over Italy.

Review by Robin Sprague:

Bingham’s book Italian Survival Guide is a must-have resource to pack in your travel bag for Italy! This book is practical; including pronunciation guides for many of the common phrases used to interact with native Italians. I particularly appreciated the Culture Note sections interspersed through the book. I visited Rome and Florence last year, and found these sections accurate and insightful–a big help to the traveler who does not want to look like a tourist!

This book is invaluable and I plan to have a copy stuffed in my handbag when I return to Italy in 2009!

Review by S. Morris:

I have bought just about every book on Italy and this is one of the best! It has great tips and information! Unlike other books, I find this information to be truthful! I lived in Italy and now take students on exchanges every year. This book has really helped them! I think it’s a must!

Review by Michael A. Duvernois:

I haven’t had a new Italy guidebook in a number of years, been using an old Lonely Planet guide for years. This is a good improvement, up to date, which is especially important for hotels and restaurants. In this Fodor’s guide there’s a good cross section of inexpensive and more luxurious accommodations. There’s a lot of space on the sights and basics of getting around, which I didn’t need as much so I’m not as good of a judge on that. The color photos look good and could help with planning before a trip, but are probably not as useful while on the road. A single book for a whole country is often pretty thin on the ground. A couple of my personal favorite places are mentioned though in the book, an interesting surprise. The book is a starting point though, best for first time travelers to Italy but useful for repeat visitors as well.

Review by anonymous:

The Rough Guide is the way to go for touring and paying fair prices for what you get. Make sure to buy the most recent year and you’ll be good to go. (and reserve way ahead of time in Italy especially in Venice, Florence!) The hotel and restaurant recommendations are reliable. The sometimes not-so-politically correct histories within are amusing enough to read the book cover-to-cover. Plus if a place is lousy they tell you not to waste your time instead of sending you there as a plug to sell the guide. Other guides sing praises about places you go to that are trash heaps filled with other tourists that have apparently read the same misinformed guide! Yes because it is a guide and reality changes faster than print: very, very rarely you will find something out-of-date or be disappointed by a recommendation. But less so with Rough Guides.

I’ve tried them all. The competition is not worth considering as they are almost always outdated or so limited to one set itinerary. Frommer’s = way too expensive for what you get : hotels, restaurants for rich American tourists. Let’s Go = hohum, many establishments do not still exist and if they do you’ll be disappointed! (Best pizza in Parma = inedible) Lonely Planet = inspiring photos but lacking substance. Rick Steve’s = ridiculous inaccurate hand-drawn maps and the one proscribed itinerary to visit an entire country.

Go Rough Guide. No regrets.

PS If you are planning on driving in Europe consider taking a GPS unit with you that has European maps and POI (point of interests) in it to alleviate stress and promote family accord. This is especially important when entering foreign cities. Using the GPS you can select a parking garage near the hotel (if none at hotel) before arrival, safely navigate there, park the car, and hoof the rest of the way on foot. Don’t make the same mistake I did in Siena!

Review by Richard R. Carlton:

I’ve been to Italy several times…..Rome, Venice, Florence, Bologna, Milan, some of the hill towns, etc (most recently last April). Here are my reviews of the best guides to meet your exact needs…..I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later……this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!

Rick Steves’ books are not recommended. They may be an interesting read but their helpfulness is very poor. They don’t do well on updates, transportation details, or anything but the first-time-tourist routine and even that is somewhat superficial on anything but the mega-major sites.

Frommer’s

These are time tested guides that pride themselves on being updated annually. Although I think the guides below provide information that is in more depth or more concise (depending on what the guide is known for), if your main concern is that the guide has very little old or outdated information, then this would be a good guide for you.

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.

Blue Guides

Without doubt, the best of the walks guides…. the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.

MapGuide

MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It’s great for teaching you how to use the public transportation system. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the center of the city.

Time Out

The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!

Let’s Go

Let’s Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor’s or Michelin). Let’s Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here’s which is what:

Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.

City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.

PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information

MapGuide’s are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)

Michelin

Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.

Fodor’s

Fodor’s is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here’s which is what:

The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It’s not called the Gold guide for nothing though….it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.

SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide

PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit

UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out

CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information

Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide

Review by yohahn:

I studied for 3 months in Rome in 1999. The 3rd edition of the Italy guide was the defacto bible for travel from Sicilia to the Dolomites. Of course Venice, Florence, Pisa and Rome are covered, but how about Cortona, Siena, Poggibonisi, Assizi, Orvieto, Enna, Catania, Vulcanis, Bari, Lecce, Positano, Siracusa? How to get there, what to see, what to expect in these hill towns and costal villages? If I got there could I get back to Rome by Monday’s morning classes? No other single travel book is filled with all the information found in the Italy guide.As an example, one weekend I told my roomates that I wanted to go to San Marino because according to the guide I could get my passport stamped with entry to a country within a country. Also it mentioned “spactacular views”. Nothing prepared us for what we saw, a fortress castle hewn into the 2000+ ft cliffs and a city in the clouds overlooking a vast plain of farms and towns!