Italian map recommendations
 

We'll be spending a month (May) in Italy and will have a rental car the whole time. We fly into Milan, do the Lakes and Dolomites, then Cinque Terre, Florence and the rest of Tuscany and Umbria. We have an old green Michelin atlas book of Italy which is detailed but hard to follow as it jumps from one part of the book to the other. Can someone recommend individual detailed maps that we might order to help us navigate the side roads we may want for our photographic ventures?

Thanks for any advice.

I would get the Touring Club Italiano maps for each region you are visiting. Sounds like you will need at least Lombardy, Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria and Trentino, but maybe also Piemonte and Veneto. Some larger Barnes and Nobles and Borders carry them or they can be ordered from the Savvy Traveler in Chicago which has an online store.

Microsoft AutoRoute 2006 with GPS locator.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/homepc/a...s.aspx?pid=001

I also like the TCI maps but also have a Hammond Italy Road Atlas that I really think is pretty good. The page to page maps over the country are 1:300,000 with city maps at 1:15,000

We just returned (will post a trip report in a couple of days).

Used the Hammond Road Atlas book, but primarily used our laptop with a ProGin GPS adapter (about $40) and got the Route 66 Europe Maps software ($35 on Ebay).

It worked fantastic. Called the unit Sir Francis (Sir Francis Chichester-great sailing navigator). Just turn on Sir Francis, in a few seconds our position is locked and we know almost exactly where to go, one-way streets and all.

dave