guide book dilemma - Italy
 

I have gotten absolutely fabulous advice from everyone on this site! thank you!

my family and I (four adults) are traveling to venice, florence, rome, and pompeii (leaving Friday). I have printed out ridiculous amounts of information from this site and have booked most museums/tours ahead of time.

I don't, however, have a good map for any of these cities. Also, I don't have a good smaller guidebook to use. I would prefer not to carry the very thick folder I have created for this trip with me every day. Instead, I would love to have a smaller sized guide book with included maps to keep in my day bag. That way, I can quickly reference sites whilst wandering about for background information and use a map to get from place to place.

Does anyone have a suggestion for good guidebooks for each of these cities? thank you!

I rip out the sights and restaurants out of the guidebook I'd been reading beforehand and just carry those. You won't need the hotel stuff or (perhaps) any of the superfluous info in the book once you get there. I also copy anything noteworthy from my personal research into the back of my travel journal, so at most, I'm only carrying one chapter ripped out of my guidebook for the city I'm in, my Streetwise map and my travel journal with notes.

If I had one compact book it would be the Michelin Gren book for Italy.
If I had seperate books for each city they would be the DK series named TOP 10 ROME[Venice---]or the Fodors City Pack series.

I have never had difficulty finding a free city map once I arrive somewhere... at the train station, hotel lobby, or tourist bureau.

I don't carry guidebooks around each day, rather just use the paper map.

I have stopped buying guidebooks for the last year or so. Instead, I go to my local library and borrow the latest edition of guidebooks of the cities/countries I'm going. My library usually carries '07 and '08 editions.

I find the maps in Lonely Planet guidebooks are the best. I also find their description adequate, and generally lightweight books.

I do buy Streetwise maps for some cities.

If your maps will be used mostly for walking around, then the Streetwise version of wach city is what you need. You could scan the info and store on electronic files to be accessed with a Blackberry? E-mail them to yourself (i.e. Hotmail account, roadrunner), access and print as needed on an Internet cafe/hotel?

I take all the pages of information I found online and organize hints to follow my itinerary plan. Rather than printing out every page, I cut and paste what I think may be useful information. I resize the font to the smallest size I can read - then I print it with narrow margins, and print on both sides of the paper.

With everything organized to co-incide with my intinerary, I only carry that day's notes each day.I don't need books or dozens of pages including adventisments, or references for places and things I know I won't be seeing.

As for maps, for driving around the country I like Michelin maps. I try to photocopy each day's trip, then enlarge the photo copy so I can read the map easier.Rather than carry an accordian-pleated map, I only take the sections that I will need to drive. I find that I like to travel no more than what copies on to a 8x11 page, so that I'm not spending too much time in a car. When I enlarge to 11x17 its easy to read.

For city sightseeing I like laminated Insight fleximap.

For one compact book, I also recommend Michelin Green Italy book. I've traveled with people who had DK books, but Michelin's Italy had more info about particular cities--not as many pretty diagrams, but more written information.

Hi, dcm58 -

Baedeker guides might suit your needs.

Have a look at the Knopf Map guides to Venice, rome and Florence. they run about $9 per book, but I love them for exactly what you need--readable maps of areas with street names plainly marked as well as sights, and only about 6 x 6" per book.

I have also got to recommend Knopf Mapguide books. I too use them for most places I visit. They are small and fit nicely in a purse or roomy coat pocket and have fold out pages by neighborhood. Each section also features restaurants, bars, shopping and popular sites along with the map so it is really easy for planning touring per neighborhood. The maps are clearly marked and an excellent size, especially for using at night under a street light and if you wear glases like me.

Here we are a year later and I am starting to pan our first trip. Any other thoughts on the best travel guide?

There is no "best". Different people like different features and focus in a guidebook. Depends on your interests and your budget. I would go to a large book store and browse thru what's available. As far as city walking maps, I say what I posted a year ago(lol) those I've always easily found once I arrived at the city, in a hotel lobby or tourist info stands.

suze recommends the "free" maps, and this worked OK for us in Rome and Florence. But we saw many people in Venice trying to navigate with the free map that's available there. It is not good enough for Venice - you need something like a Hallweg, with a good street frinder.

Or a Moleskine City Notebook - 15 Euro, and good value.

IMHO the maps in the guidebooks aren't really detailed enough for anything except general orientation. For walking you need a detailed street map - that you can usually get from your hotel in each city. Or buy one of the small fold out walking maps here.

the Rough Guide Venice map is by far the best, accurate and comprehensive. I dont like their Rome map quite as well because its coverage of outlying areas is spotty but it is still very good and recommended. these maps are made of some plastic/waterproof material so they will not tear at the folds or fall apart if they get wet. And they have restaurants marked. Excellent. For pure tourist info, just a little food the Michelin Green Guides are excellent in Italy with seemingly just the right amount of info, usually. There are separate city guides but for a shortish trip the Italy guide shold be adequate. they fit in pockets and purses extremely well. If you have more than a few days in Rome, and like to walk you can buy a small version of the Companion Guide there in the city - the versions available in US are heavy bulky things. For Pompeii, the map, booklet and audio guide you are given at the site (audio guide for a fee, of course) are perfectly adequate.