Good - but not exceptional
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This is a good guide book, as all the guide books in the series, but I did expect a bit more from it. I travelled around Italy together with my husband the summer of 2005, and we used this guide book a lot. But it is a guide book, nothing more. There are quite a bit of things that have changed since the book was last edited, but this is expected. We are planning to send the findings we did to the editor, so that it can be added or changed in the next edition, perhaps.
We felt that the book focused too much on churches, castles etc, and a lot of really interesting things were missed - like the local food markets, which we love to visit. There wasn't much of "different" or "special" recommendations, it was just focusing on the "What to see if you are a tourist", while what you remember are the things "sticking out". You can only look at so many churches during three weeks...
You could also find that the author(s) recommended one area in the top part of a column, but further down it was the other way around. It was obvious that the text was not written by one person only, but by several, and then compiled into one lump of text. I was aware that several people helped writing the book, and for a guide book I believe that is good, but the texts should be kept separate. Now it became very obvious at times that two people with different opinion had written parts of one text.
These guidebooks do not at all talk about how life is for the locals, if there are any "local speciallities" in regards to food and whine etc. Considering Italy is one of the best food countries in the world, I think this is a pity!Funny is that we actually managed to end up at one of the hotels that the book recommended, although we didn't plan for it. I didn't realise we were at the recommended place until the day after we checked in. Some parts I might want to read more carefylly next time... It was an excellent little place, though, and we really enjoyed it! So, in short: Get this guide book, but don't let it be your only guide, make sure you stop by the local touristinfo and pick up some info as well! And have fun in Italy!
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Dissapointing from Lonely Planet
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I have bought Lonely Planet books many times before and found them really good, but this book was not very helpful. There is two much information on the cities and hardly anything about the beach areas or areas out of the cities. When I am on holiday I would rather have fun than read 35 pages about monks in the 13th century.
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FAB!!!
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I really enjoyed this book and found it very helpfull and with great tips and info to my TRIP to Italy/
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Indispensable...
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If you're heading off on a tour of Italy, I thoroughly recommend purchasing this book.The book proved invaluable to me, offering useful accomodation information as well as detailed maps of the places I visited. My journey consisted of a tour of Italy's more famous cities- from Pisa to Florence, on to Rome and Napoli, down to Pompeii and Sorrento, eventually heading north to Venice. For this journey, the book was superb, although I have heared criticisms of the book if you are considering heading further off the beaten track. All in all, I found this book indispensable while I was in Italy, and thoroughly recommend it to anyone embarking on a city tour of Italy.
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Good General Overview
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I found this book to be quite insightful especially when describing the history of a particular place or region. Italy is a varied a vast country which is hard to some up in one book...but this certainly makes a good attempt. I found it very useful when visiting cities and sourcing food and accommodation. The recommendations were excellent! V.good with details pertaining to travel ie. trains, buses, planes etc. Just lacking a little when getting into the ares which are off the beaten track but will give a very good indication of what is on offer when visiting Italy. I would reccommend to tuck this into your backpack.
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