Guide books for Italy
 

I am having trouble deciding what guide books to bring. I want info on Venice, Florence, Tuscany & Rome. It's hard to tell if the info is helpful until you try to use it. I've gotten several from the library & they each have some good points. I have all my hotel reservations so I'll probably just need touring info & maybe suggesions on restaurants. Lots of peole seem to like Rick Steves. Your thoughts please?

Hi
we were in Rome this winter. I used the Cadogan guide to Rome. Found it very helpful. It has maps for each area with an explanation of the sights. A little wit and good maps helped. I also have a Michelen guide to Italy that I've found helpful with their description and maps. Their suggested driving tours were very helpful. i have not used Rick Steves. I have a preference for English guide books, but that's just my own chhosing.
Alan

We found Rick Steves' guides for Florence and Venice to be extremely helpful on our trip last summer.

Another vote for the Cadogan guide books. Very good on sights, reliable on restaurants.

It seems there are tons of travel books to choose from. As this will be my first time going to Italy I have poured over what appears to be every single book applicable to my trip. I have researched opinions on which books to use and there are just as many opinions as there are books ;)

I went to amazon.com and a few other book sites, don't remember them all, and compared the sales figures for the ones I was interested in, many of which were suggestions from this site and Slow Travelers site.

Then I went to Barnes & Noble, pulled every single book that was about travel to Italy and thumbed through them. The ones that did not appeal to me at all for what ever reason I put in one pile and in most cases put back on the shelf. The ones that seemed to call out to me I put in another pile.

Then I reviewed all the ones that were left in the "called out" to me pile. I pretended I was in Italy, holding the book and trying to find the places talked about.

In this way I narrowed down the books I purchased. (I was going to buy them from the web sites, it would have been quite a savings. But I HAD to have them RIGHT THEN. ;) )

I bought Lonely Planet Tuscany & Umbria. I liked the size, I liked the printing, I liked the style of writing. I liked the ease of reading the extra travel tips.

I also purchased two DK Eyewitness books. Florence & Tuscany and also the Rome book. Having never been to any of these places I thought it pretty cool to be able to SEE many of the places being written about. The size of the books makes them easy to carry and I like the ease in which I can read the writing. (The reading of the writing is important to me. Some of the well thought of guide books that I'm sure are very good are not easy for me to read and would make me a bit stressed. For instance very small type on grayish paper.)

Frommer's 25 unforgettable iteneraries: Tuscany & Umbria's Best Loved Driving Tours. Size of book, ease of read, respected name in travel guide book circles, liked the way the tours are specified with distance, times and what there is to see.

Frommer's Italy 2004 is what I chose for my main overview of Italy book. (I wanted to purchase the Fodor's books but I just did not "like them." I'm sure they had all kinds of good info but the "packaging" was unappealing to me. Print too small and scrunchy.)

I purchased the Kate Simon book, Italy the Places in between. The books read like poetry.

Michelin Italy Tourist and Motoring Atlas.

My father sent me Italian at A Glance by Barron's.

I'm sure some people will say "mean" things about the way I picked out my books but this is the way I did it because otherwise I would have bought them ALL and I certainly could not afford that.

I would love to hear what others have to say about how they picked their FIRST trip to Italy books and how the books compared to what they actually found when they completed their trips. Did you end up throwing any of your choices out? Have you found books for return trips to Italy that met your expectations?

The slowtrav site has a good section on this topic. I use the Michelin Green book to carry, and any of the DK Eyewitness books for research. DK also has a group of small books named TOP TEN [TUSCANY, VENICE ET AL] that are great summary books.

Michelin Green is wonderful as long as you enjoy a lot of detail on history, art, and architecture. I carry those with me. The more general guides, such as Fodors, Frommers, and Eyewitness are good for pre-trip research and I copy essential information so as only to bring a few pages with me. Rick Steves has a brief, irreverent, and for my preferences, dismissive attitude toward most of the museums and historic sites of the world. Here and there he provides one good tip, but I've bought two of his books over the years, wrote down about 3 things, and then gave the books away.

A lot of restaurnant info can be found on line, or as mentioned, in info that can be condensed into a few pages.
One additional book that I have carried with me on travels is any one of the Gustafson series "Cheap Eats in..."
I like the recommendations and details she provides.

I did the same sort of thing as PLMN but using books I took from various libraries for the 1st phase of my research which was to decide on a rough itinerary,to choose & reserve hotels. But I'm now stuck on which books to buy & carry around with me. I agree about the format (tiny black type on a grey background) & about wanting to take them all but my suitcase is already full.
Thanks to those who have commented so far - anyone have any other suggestions about which books have accurate info about the sites, suggestions on restaurants & travel tips (site where reservations are a good idea...) I'll be driving in Tuscany so driving routes would be helpful too. I can't find the Michelen green book & it's too late to order it online.
Did anybody wait & get their guide books once in Italy? I have some old books I bought years ago in Italy but the museums must have moved some of the exhibits around by now.
Thanks

Mt favorites are usually the green Michelin and the Cadogan guide books for the specific regions or areas of a country that I plan to visit. I always like those two types of guides. But I also find merit in many many other guide books for various specific purposes, e.g., Blue Guides, Rough Guide, Dorling Kingsley, Lonely Planet, Baedeker, sometimes just looking up things at a bookstore, sometimes taking outdated copies out of the library, and sometimes buying them. I don't like the Rick Steves books, because it seems that he tries to do all your thinking for you, selecting just what he feels like selecting and omitting entire important and interesting chunks of a country. He also sometimes makes some insulting remarks about the local population that would make me unwilling to spend money on his books even if I might be interested in reading them occasionally.

P.S. Even if you have the very latest guidebook, you might find that the hours of various sites have changed or that there just happen to be problems or exceptions to the usual rule when you are there. Italy can be unpredictable, but it's practically all good, so you can always enjoy your "plan B" (or C, D, E, etc.) if your first choice of a destination or activity doesn't work out.

Mimmel, My favorite guide books are the ACCESS guides. They have Venice and Florence in one book together, and Rome in a seperate book. The chapters are broken down by neighborhood.I could not be without them when I'am traveling. They also publish books on Paris, London, New York etc.. If you can't find them in the bookstore you can order them on Amazon.com.

Another vote for the Access guides. I used one in Paris and just bought the Florence/Venice one for an upcoming trip to Florence. I went through it and put post-its on pages that had special, unusual places to see. I really like them for restaurants, shopping and some off-the-beaten track sights. I also love the Eyewitness guides for the maps and for planning in advance what to see.

I haven't been to Italy, sorry to say, but as to general guidebooks, I really like Frommers (Sorry, Fodors, don't like your print type/size, or your grayish paper, as another poster above said!) Frommers is very current, as a rule, with lots of good little details. And the Access Guides are great, the way they lay out neighborhoods..........

Great tips, thanks. I just bought the Cheap Eats, & Michelen's Venice (it's got the best map). I'd like to get the Michelen Florence book but haven't found it yet (no time left to order it). I'm looking for Baedeker's book on Tucany but it too has to be ordered.

In the first sentence of your post, you're wondering which guide books to bring. Here's a suggestion: Instead of lugging a guidebook along, I like to make copies of the pages I need while I'm on the trip. Copy the Venice, Florence, Tuscany and Rome pages in the books you like, reducing the size if the print is large. When you leave a city or area, leave the pages behind for someone else to use.

Buon viaggio

Very good advise Betsy. I've collected about 12 different guide books while preparing for my family's upcoming Italy trip. It would be silly to bring them all along but copying pertinent pages is an excellent idea.

Ken

There is a way to circumvent outdated opening times given in guide books. On arrival in a city, go to the local tourist office and ask for the "orari dei musei e delle chiese." They will try to fob you off with a glossy preprinted brochure that is likely to be as outdated as the guide books, but if you insist, they will generally pull out a photocopied list of opening times, which makes up in accuracy what it lacks in presentation.

Thanks Betsy & Eloise - 2 great tips I think I'll use.