Italy (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

Comment: I have extensively used this travel guide as a main reference point during my month-long road trip through Italy in the summer of '09. It is brilliantly written, with a lot of up-to-date information and excellent photos, maps and illustrations. This is a general guide covering whole Italy. As such it was ideally suited for my road trip as I was staying for max 2-3 days in most of the places. It gave me the highlights of each place I visited and enabled to see everything important.

However, I recommend more detailed guides if you intend to spend more time in the Tuscany region (Florence, Sienna, etc), Venice or Rome. It's not that this guide lacks information - it covers in a lot of detail for all of the mentioned places. However, if you want to dig deeper, a dedicated guide book for these regions is recommended.

(The reviewer was compensated for posting this review. However, the opinion stated in the review is that of the reviewer and the reviewer alone. Further, the reviewer independently selected this product to review and has no affiliation with the product maker/distributor, Amazon or the review requester.)

Comment: This book contains a wealth of information about Italy. However, it was not exactly what I expected when I ordered the book. I was thinking more along the lines of tons of detailed traveler's hints on where to stay, how to get there and how much it costs. That information is definitely available, but more in the sense of secondary information towards the back of the book.

The main thrust of this book is the immense wealth of detailed information of what a person will see in the major regions, cities and inside buildings, etc., as well as a tremendous historical base for the country/city/region.

At times, the amount of general information is almost overwhelming, and it was almost daunting to make myself read it all before leaving on our trip. However, once we actually arrived in Italy, I found the book to be quite valuable. Many of the fold out-maps of different cities / sectors were invaluable.

Ferreting out the nitty-gritty information for general tourism in Italy wasn't as easy as I had expected when I bought the book, but it was there, and extremely helpful.

If you're looking for an over-all book that tells you everything you've ever wondered about Italy, from ancient to present times, a book that has detailed pictures and descriptions of WHAT you will see in the various tourist attractions, plus a wealth of general tourism information about Italy, this is your book. If you just want a cut and dried catalogue of places, directions and prices, this book will frustrate you.

Comment: This book provides you with a tremendous amount of detail,great pictures and maps. Anyone that has never been to Italy will find this book extremely informative and answer almost any questions you have about this country.

Comment: I purchased this guide as it was recommended to me by a seasoned traveler. I found it contained exquisite pictures, nice descriptions and highlighted some of the more important sites in each area we visited. It also included historical information on the various regions and structures within them and most especially on the famous art and architecture that made me not want to miss any of it. Other than the book being a bit heavy to lug around, I feel it is an excellent guide that I have enjoyed reading even after my trip.

Comment: This Guide was the most important thing I traveled with in Italy. It is a wonderful book to use. I have used some of their other books before and did not hesitate to pick this up before our trip. The Guide gives enough details to direct you to see the really important things and those that may not be included in regular tours. The maps and directions provided were wonderful as were the descriptions. I highly recommend this guide.