Everyone says that in an effort to pack light, you should photocopy pages from guidebooks, however...what are your favorite, practical guidebooks that you would bring to Italy if you could bring just 1 or 2? Thanks!
Missy

Oops. Sorry...wrong forum.

Hi Mom,

You have the right forum.

There is only one Europe board.

I love Green Guides...I think for Italy they make them for Tuscany, Rome, and Venice

I read several guidebooks, and usually create a word document compliling information from multiple sources. That way, I only take information that is interesting and relevant to me, nothing extra.

I read a number of guidebooks in advance, but the ones I have most consistently found useful while traveling are from Rough Guides. I find their maps to be better (and more easily read) than those of most guidebooks. Too, they have a fair amount of information about a lot of different sites, which I like in case I get intrigued by something I hadn't planned to visit (a church or museum or whatever). Just one opinion!

Cadogan guides; they cover most, if not all, of Italy. I find their information on sights, hotels and restaurants to be consistently excellent.

I like Rough Guides, too, but not as well as Cadogan.

For Sicily and a few other regions, Frommer is excellent.

I think the Michelin Green Guides have the best in-depth coverage, but I'm VERY partial to the Cadogan guides, too, because they "tell it like it is," including the good and the not so good, which is refreshing. They're good reads, too.

While I read guidebooks ahead of time, I don't take any on my trips... just a map and a few notes.

hi ,travelmom,

IMO you need different guide books for different things.

when planning you need overviews and accommodation suggestions. but once you've booked, those pages of hotel reviewd become superfluous, ditto the bits about paces you aren't going to.

on the other hand, if you are touring round you need hotels and resturants, plus sights when you are there.

that's why I like michelin - red guide for hotels etc., green guide for sights. then I'm not carrying around hotel info when I'm sight-seeing.

more recent guides have included some hotels in the green guides - anyone else think that's a retrograde step?

regards, ann

I was just checking out my stack of guidebooks for Barcelona, and the clear winner of all was the AA Guide, published in the UK. I especially liked the easy to use format, with tabs for things like restaurants, places of interest, etc., starting with an excellenct map for each area, keyed to what you'd want to look up. I know you can get them on Amazon, as I just sent one to a friend who will meet us in Barcelona in September.

I've always enjoyed the Eyewitness guides, but haven't seen what's out there in the past 5 or 6 years.