Hello,
Can anyone recommend a good road map for touring Northern Italy? Can I purchase it online?

Thanks.

I never like a big ("fold-out&quot map as well as a (spiral-bound) "book" (i.e., road atlas) - - but maybe that's a personal preference, and in the early planning stages, you might prefer a map.

For purchase ahead of a road atlas, just type in "italy road atlas" on www.amazon.com and you'll see a half dozen - - you can pay as much as $40 or as little as $5 (at least right now, since someone is offering a used one from the AA).

They also have the big ("whole&quot Italy Michelin map. but don't seem to stock the regional map(s) you need - - northern Italy is divided into Nortwest and Northeast - - see www.omnimap.com for example.

But I never think it worthwhile to buy ahead. Any good sized gas station on the autostrada will have a whole rack full of maps and atlases, and I just buy when I get there.

Best wishes,

Rex

Hi M.

We bought our Michelin maps from these folks.

Here is a link to Italy maps.

http://www.languagequest.com/travele...italy/main.htm

We purchased the Michelin 563 for Tuscany and found that it didn't have enough detail for our purposes, especially when we were exploring all the back roads in wine country. The scale was 1:400,000.

We also purchased the Touring Club Italiano map of Tuscany, and it was much much better. The scale was 1:200,000.

If you're going to explore Northern Italy, I wouldn't get anything with less detail than the 1:200,000. It'll show all the "back/dirt/gravel" roads.

Another vote for the Touring Club Italiano maps. They are available in good bookshops in the UK so probably in the US too.

When we picked up our Hertz rental car, they gave us a great map. Its the big fold out kind, so as long as you have a faithful navigator and don't need to spread it along the steering wheel, it works!

I actually have it out on the living room floor for planning purposes

Thanks everyone! I will try and find the touring club maps and also look for some when I get there. For planning purposes, I like to have a map ahead of time.

Hi Mikki, if you can't find what you want as soon as your arrive in Italy go the a bookstore.

BTW the word map in Italian is piante.

The Touring Club Italiano is the best map to have. I have two, one for Northern Italy and one for Southern Italy. Have a wonderful trip!

I have and have used both the Michelin 1:400,000 scale maps (1 cm = 4 km) and the green TCI 1:200,000 scale maps (1 cm = 2 km). For general trip planning, the Michelin maps are fine. They're detailed enough to give you a good level of detail of the type of road or railroad you'd be traveling on, and they are available at most Barnes & Noble or Borders stores. If most of your driving would be on the Autostrada or similar highways, a Michelin map will be adequate.

The TCI maps are twice as detailed, and are great for specific route planning. If you plan on driving from the Middle of Nowhere to East Nowhere, you'll definitely want a TCI map. I have two TCI maps tacked to a corkboard in my office, so that I can pinpoint logistics of my upcoming 3-week Torna a Italia/ Dolce Far Niente trip in June and early July. I will traveling to small towns off the beaten path, so I intend to put my TCI's to good use. TCI maps occasionally can be found in B&N or Borders, but I had to buy mine at a special map store here in town (logically enough, called "The Map Shop&quot.

And when reading a map, note that those little dots on the Autostrada are the exits..... We were on our way back to the airport by the time we figured that out--it would have been very helpful to know earlier ('cause some of them are very far apart).