Blue Guide Rome, Eighth Edition [Paperback]

Alta MacAdam (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003 | Series: Blue Guide Rome

With more than thirty walks, an extensive map section, and plans of sites, museums, and churches, Blue Guide Rome is the most detailed guide available for visitors to one of the world's most celebrated cities. It is filled with in-depth descriptions of Rome's art history as well as useful practical information for the traveler. 16-page color street atlas, 33 maps and plans, 33 illustrations.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 8th edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393324737
• ISBN-13: 978-0393324730
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,066,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a fine guide to the historical/cultural sites, June 28, 2004

By 

mnraft (Baltimore, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Guide Rome, Eighth Edition (Paperback)

This book divides Rome into 29 walking tours. Each one takes about a day. Maybe you could do two per day in the summer. A few of the tours have a common theme, but most of them just cover a region of the city. The focus is on cultural/historical sites. There's very little about where to eat, sleep, or shop. The author is thorough and provides a lot of insight. The book reads as a folksy continuous narrative by a knowledgeable and perceptive guide. If you have a month in Rome, you could use this book to get a great tour.

Many tourists would find this book difficult to use. Suppose you're in Rome for a few days, not nearly enough time to walk all 29 tours. There is no easy way to use this book to prioritize which sites to visit.

The Michelin Green Guide has a similar aim and focus, but is much more user-friendly for a short visit. It breaks the city into a smaller number of regional walks. In general it's not quite as thorough as the Blue Guide in terms of what it says about each site and the number of sites it includes. The Michelin Guide has a system of one, two, and three stars to prioritize the sites. This makes it easy for the user to just hit the highlights.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Blue Guide" means "Blue Guide" (uninitiated need not apply), January 25, 2005

By 

Douglas Boin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue Guide Rome, Eighth Edition (Paperback)

Let's be clear. This "guide" book is usually standard textbook fare for the 35 American students chosen to study at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (ICCS) in Rome. Why? Between two covers and kept in your sachel, it offers everything a student would need to know about the Roman ruins that might have been the Temple to Spes or the iconography of a Caravaggio hanging in ... wait, a minute, what church are we in? The Blue Guide series is for those who are looking for a little education amongst their travels. As such, it usually needs supplementing with a more popular, flashy compendium of phone numbers or restaurants. At least now we're clear (but don't begrudge it).

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Serves a specific purpose, May 27, 2004

By 

ThatGrrl (Charlottesville, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Guide Rome, Eighth Edition (Paperback)

If you are looking for a guide to do EVERYTHING, you can probably do better. Certainly, if you only want to bring one book, this probably isn't it. However, I wouldn't dare go to Rome without it. Rome is an amazing city, where the smallest church may seem like nothing from the outside. But go in, open your Blue Guide and suddenly you realize that there's a Caravaggio or a Bernini on the premises. I don't use a guide such as this for planning. I use it for reference while I'm in the city. I'd have missed PLENTY without it. For the purpose it serves for me, it's the best there is!