The Rough Guide to Italy (Travel Guide)

I don't agree with the previous negative reviews on this book. It was my sole guide book for a 10-day trip around Italy (Venice, Florence, the Cinque Terre, and Pisa) and I was never lacking for anything. I also travelled by train and mostly on a budget, so that may affect my opinion of the book. To be honest, I'm biased towards Rough Guides, but that's because I've used them several times and they've never let me down. The book physically holds up well - mine still looks like new after spending 10 days in a backpack. I love the maps; they are accurate and generally there when you need them, although I would have liked to have had one for Levanto (near the Cinque Terre). Rough Guides are typically also packed with historical background and good suggestions that will often take you off the "tourist trail". I particularly liked this book's suggestions to reserve tickets for Florence museums ahead of time via phone or internet and to hike the Cinque Terre main trail (the Sientero Azzurro/Blue Trail) from Riomaggiore back to Monterosso, as it was definitely much easier that way. I also loved the historical/background information throughout the book, especially for Florence. Overall, I really liked this book. I'm always open to restaurants and hotels that I walk by or come across for other reasons (as I think any traveler should be), so I don't depend on my guide books for absolutely everything. I also tend not to plan my trips in much detail before I arrive in a country - just general destinations and first and last nights' lodging - I figure the rest out as I go. But this book got me around Italy with no problems and I was thrilled with my Rough Guide (again). Additional information for potential travelers to Italy: I supplemented this guide book with a Rough Guide Italian phrasebook and the Rough Guide Venice map - both were excellent. I used a Teach Yourself Beginner's Italian before I got to Italy and used a free map of Florence that we got in a hotel (although I did use the Florence map in the book to get to and from the train station and to our first hotel that was not close to the center). I used booking.com to find hotels in Florence and found two decent two-star hotels for 40 euro a night, which was a great deal!

We have purchased The Rough Guide to France before and loved it. It was a very accurate and extremely helpful guide. Every recommendation turned out to be right on the money. The Rough Guide to Italy is a good guide, but not as good as the one for France. While the Italian history, the maps, the general area descriptions were excellent, many village / city specific recommendations were outdated and many places (mainly restaurants) listed in the book were not there in reality. We believe such differences between the two books really depend on the writers, and those who visited France simply wrote a better book. We would still recommend this book, but if you do the combination travel to France like we did, please know that the Italy version won't be as thorough and accurate as the French one.

Rough guide was recommended by a co-worker, whose suggestions I respect. I expected a guide that perhaps just stuck to basics.I PERUSED THE GUIDE for 4 days before my trip, and during air travel and stop-overs. I found all info accurate, especially appreciated history and language sections in back helpful. The only problem I encountered was the print was finer than the guides I had perused at the library, making reading in poor light situations difficult. Hostel info was accurate. Historical backround w was very helpful.

Now, a lot of people want their guidebooks to be long lists of hotels plus a list of the authors' idea of the most important places. If, however, you don't plan your itinerary ahead, so you always seem to end up at the hostel cause that's the only open place left, accomadation listings are less important. Let's Go usually has more extensive budget sleeps, but neither it nor Lonely Planet can compare for the coverage of out of the way places. Some people want a guidebook with lots of pictures to show them where they want to go. Rough Guides you have to read, and you have to read them carefully. There's a certain skill involved, because they don't show a strong ranking of "desirableness," and they don't shy from the less-perfect sides of what is, after all, a real, contemporary country, not a museum. The upside (and it's a big upside) is that you can find places that never make it into the other books. I was in Italy last summer, and I spent days in Gubbio (in Umbria), and Peschici (in Puglia). When I'd talk to people in hostels later on in big towns, they would never have heard of the places I'd loved, because they weren't mentioned in their guidebooks. There is so much more to Italy that what you can get out of an Insight Guide or a Let's Go, and you owe it to yourself to find some of it. Sure, it's heavy, and some of the maps are inferior, but there are a lot of them, and they're for places Let's Go has never seen.

I found this great for the more out of the way places in Italy, especially walking in the national parks. Their coverage of history is good too - detailed but not boring. Good for nightlife and cheap accommodation.