Insight Guides Italy

Since I love Paris, I love this book. It has everything in the book that I waned to know about Paris and some of her history. It would be wonderful with Rick Steve's Paris book. I used that book all over Paris and it was just perfect.YOU WILL LOVE THSE BOOK!

Told me what I needed to know for being in Paris for only 2 days.

Simply put....., all of the Insight Books that I have purchased prior to travel have been outstanding.......the only one's I will buy....., great information and lots of photos to go with the info make it an excellent product!

Insight guides always have fabulous photographs and background information that will help you enjoy your trip even more. This book is just such a gem. I recommend it highly for an educational experience. If you want to know all the cheap places to eat get another book!

It would be a pity for anyone to travel to Italy - or any other country - without having a handy informative resource on the rich history and culture of the country.If your travelling style involves much more than racing through monuments and ticking off the standard "must see" list, because you seek to more deeply understand the present by looking at the past, this might be the perfect handy companion to complement a more practical travel guidebook.More than one-quarter of the 400-plus pages are devoted to the history of Italy, with well written sections in Ancient Rome, the Renaissance, and the emergence of the modern Italian state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are also superb featured sections on topics such as the Mafia, Italian fashion, and Italian cinema. These discussions are very compact. While not substituting for in-depth analysis on these topics, they constitute an excellent survey of different phases of contemporary and ancient history of Italy. These are the main strengths of this book. It is a wonderful resource to consult while travelling after you have visited a monument, or as you reflect on the rich series of events and forces which have shaped the arts, political life, and institutions of this country. Travellers who mainly want a helpful guide on planning travel to Italy and practical information such as museum visiting hours, best driving routes, where to find the best gelattos, etc. will find other travel guides more complete on these topics. You may think about using this book as a complement to one of these more practical guides.