Hi

I am looking for recommendations for guidebooks that do a good job of covering the Piedmont and Emilia Romagna regions of Italy. Guidebooks that describe the regions, cities and small towns, what there is to see; and hotel and restaurant recommendations.

My tripped to Italy is booked for October 2008. I have definitely decided on on Rome and Venice, but have decided to add a third location since I have been to Rome before.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Piedmont and Emilia Romagna are generally not very well covered in guidebooks to Italy. Particularly if you just want to make up your mind, go to a library or a large bookstore and look at regional guidebooks. The Cadogan regional guidebooks are normally very good.

Frommer’s and Fodor’s-Good on restaurants and hotels, poor on history and culture, small town recommendations non-existent

Rough Guide and Lonely Planet-Opinionated and edgy, good on history and culture, terrible on restaurants and hotels

Caadogan-specialized for a specific areas. Quietly helpful

Eyewitness and National Geographic-Like stereotypical models nice to look at but little else.

Rick Steve’s-I would rather be lead by a blind man who had never been to Italy.

Michelin Green-probably the best for sites.

Check out the TCI Authentic Italy guidebooks:

Piedmont:
http://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Pied...862&sr=1-2

Emilia-Romagna:
http://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Emil...pd_sim_b_img_9


TCI is also a great resource for maps and other guides:

http://www.touringclubofitaly.com/US/home_tci.htm

BTW, I don't work for or have a financial interest in TCI.

There's not a lot out there in English for those regions; we visited the Piedmont in October, and have visited some parts of Emilia Romagna on previous trips.

Cadogan had the most details on the small towns, and pretty good descriptions of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna (which is where we were focusing on). Details in terms of describing the towns, history, places to see, etc. But still, for the Piedmont, not as much detail as I was looking for. I found information on sites and sights in Turin in many books; due to the Olympics, there are even guidebooks that are ONLY about Turin. Many guidebooks also cover Bologna. I also bought and took with us the Blue Guide to Northern Italy; it's a very thick book, and I'm not sure whether its usefulness while there was worth my lugging it around all the time. It did have some details and information that the Cadogan guides didn't, though (I'm big into history, so want as much detail in that subject as possible.) I'll check my (way too extensive) home library this evening for other Piemont books I used.

For restaurants, I used websites a lot (here, chowhound and egullet), as well as the Gambero Rosso website (in italian), the Slowfood Guide (in English, but the book in English has fewer restaurants than the edition in Italian). And the Michelin Guide online.

For hotels, a lot of internet searches. And I already knew where we wanted to stay in the Piedmont countryside - a place my parents had stayed - so I didn't have to do much research there. If you're interested, it was a superb, unique B&B in the Barolo town of Monforte d'Alba.

If you are going to have to decide between the two, it depends on what you want to do and the amount of time you have available. Piedmont is out of the way for a trip that includes Rome and Venice, but it's a wonderful region. Emilia Romagna, the parts we've been to, were great as well, but more for food (Bologna), ambiance (Bologna and Ferrara) and history (Ravenna mosaics). Piedmont is great for beauty and food (including wine, of course)!

I second the TCI recommendation (it's sort of the Italian equivalent of AAA). We used it recently for a trip (mostly to Tuscany) and it was great. In particular, we found that every restaurant we tried was great. (Also if you are going to drive much, get the TCI maps for the regions you'll be in).

Nomad and Doh
Thanks for the recommendations for TCI. I checked them out at Amazon and they do look interesting.

Aduchamp
Thanks for the run down on the different guidebooks. I will definitely check out the Cadogan guide.

Lex
Thanks for the heads up on the different websites.

Hopefully this thread will be helpful to others also.

I used Frommers in Rome in November and was continually frustrated. As had happened to me in both Paris and Venice last year, I would look for a restaurant or shop and not find it, the addresses were totally wrong. For that reason, I'm sticking with Cadogan, Eyewitness Top 10 and Rick Steves going forward. Those seem to cover my bases just nicely. I don't use any of them for hotels though, I rely on reccos here and TripAdvisor for those.

Hi
I used ther Cadogan Guide to Rome and found it very useful and well written. I've also used Cadogan guides to other places and found them very good. A good balanced guide with a bit of humor.