Customer Reviews

Eyewitness Travel Guide to Florence and Tuscany

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My wife and I recently returned from a two week visit to Rome, Florence and Venice. We used the corresponding Eyewitness Travel Guide for each of the three cities. What I liked about all three guidebooks are its 3-D maps, good overviews of the museums and excellent descriptions of all the sites in the three cities, both major and minor ones. What was very helpful was to read a paragraph or two about a sight when we came upon it, whether deliberately or by just exploring. For the Florence book, the 3D cutaway of the Duomo is great. Also, excellently presented are the overviews of the Uffizi, the Bargello, Piazza della Signoria and Pallazzo Vecchio. The book begins with an excellent short history of the region and the Medici family. I found this description far superior to the one in the Knopf series. The book's weakness is its short and insufficient list of hotels. For hotel listings I suggest the Frommer series. Finally, an unofficial survey by observation, it seemed that more tourists were carrying the Eyewitness Travel Guides (in many different languages) than any other tour guide.

I am so happy that I had this book in my hand during out week visit in Florence. I read this book before going and was able to get an idea of what Florence was about, but when I arrived, this book did not leave my hands! This guide divides Florence into sections. We set out agenda according to sections in the book. The street-by-street map was invaluable and we were never lost. I am the worst with directions, but I knew extactly where I was during each day. With the maps, I navigated instead of my husband! The cut aways and guides to the various museums and attractions were also invaluable. We were able to walk into any attraction and know what the star features were and not have to miss a thing. We did not have to buy the extra tour books in each museum because our Eyewitness Guide gave us all the information we need and then some. Not only was I the navigator, but I was our personal tour guide. With the book, I was able to read out loud to my husband and tell him about everything we saw in Florence. There were many other tourists with the Eyewitnes Guides in their hands and I was pleasantly surprised to see the book in so many different languages. This book was able to tell us the customs of the region. When we were surprised about having to pay for a cover charge in a restaurant, I checked the restaurant section and it explained about cover charges in restaurants. We used the train from Florence to Rome and the guide told us about stamping our ticket at the yellow boxes before boarding. This guide covered it all.

You can forget the credit cards, but DO NOT LEAVE HOME WITH THIS ONE!

I am a big fan of the "Eyewitness Guide to Venice and the Veneto" and so I assumed that this would be the single best guidebook I could take with me to Florence. I was wrong, and I'm sorry I took it with me. The entries on churches and sites are hard to find. They are organized by area, except when they're not, and within each area they are organized according to a numbering system of the book's own design. I had to usually resort to the index to find an alphabetical listing and a page number, so I was constantly flipping pages back and forth. The illustrations are pretty, but so small as to be of little use. The maps in the back are of good size and clear, but in order to find a particular site I had to go back to the index to find the page number to find the entry to find out which map I should look at. The information on the many churches, museums, and old buildings in Florence was no more than can be found in many other guidebooks, and in most cases better information can be found elsewhere.

I have several of the Eyewitness Travel Guides and ALWAYS read them BEFORE I travel. It is wonderfully organized with lots of great easy-to-find tidbits; their suggestions and assessments are generally spot-on. The maps, too, are extremely helpful

HOWEVER, it's just too heavy to carry around. While beautifully bound and printed on quality paper, it's always a big decision every morning whether or not it ends up in the day-pack.

I'll keep buying them, but I wish they were lighter!

I just returned from Florence and this book was invaluable! Of all of the guidebooks our group of 4 brought with us, we kept referring to this one. Take it with you to the museum to guide you through the exhibits, have it at the dinner table to help you order...if you want only one guide book, this is the one!

On a recent trip to Tuscany, we found this book extremely useful for planning our days, but less useful when we actually got where we were going. This is basically a "teaser" book -- it contains lots of information that's helpful in deciding what you want to do, but if you're really interested in exploring a church, archeological site, or art gallery, you need a more in-depth guide. The street-maps of Florence were a little confusing, but once we figured out how to use them, they were very helpful.

This is an indispensable resource for the Tuscan visitor!

What we found most helpful is this book's organization and insight to the sights in Florence and Tuscany. It really brings a spacial sense to the places so it was the most helpful planning source.

Once you have your itinerary set out, you can use its encyclopediac format for useful information about hours of operation, fees, contact numbers, etc.

However, it does not necessarily connect point a with point b. Other guides provide this sort of information which can be helpful if you are a bit uncertain how you will get about. Not a serious shortcoming, just be aware you need to do your own planning.

I would recommend this guide over most others for its comprehenisve detail and effective graphics.

The Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guides are all very visually appealing, and the Florence and Tuscany guide is no exception. The guide literally has over 1,000 color photographs within its 312 pages. Naturally, the pictures are all on the small side, but they serve well as a visual aid so that one can get an idea of what one is going to see. The Florence section of the guide focuses on the city center, and is divided up by four areas: City Centre East, North, West, and the Oltrarno. In each section, the main sights are gone over and there is a street map and a drawn 3-D street layout of the area. In many cases, the main sights have cutaways and floorplans so that one knows exactly where one wants to go before hand. The main attractions of Florence are pretty much all within walking distance of each other, so sometimes the maps of each area are a bit confusing, and one has to flip to the street-by-street map at the end of the Florence section. This is somewhat disorienting, and I found myself not being able to find that street-by-street map since it is in the middle of the book, and it isn't convenient to put the either of the bookmarking flaps at that place. The information on the main sights of Florence was quite good, especially the information on art and history. However, it was surprising that on the section devoted to the Palazzo Vecchio, there is no mention of the beautiful sculpture of Judith with the head of Holofernes by Donatello. The text was fairly engaging, and I found myself reading the whole guide through, even though we only went to Florence and Siena. The information in this guide about other places in Tuscany seemed fairly cursory; there are around 100 pages devoted to Florence, and another 100 to the rest of Tuscany. As far as practical information for travelers, I found the restaurant information to be good, but the hotel list isn't very extensive, and I did not use the guide to find a hotel.

If you plan to buy only one travel guide to Florence and Tuscany, this is the one. It provides an overview of all aspects of Florentine life and then proceeds to discuss the attractions in different sections of the city, complete with street maps. Major attractions are given several page spreads with open building diagrams from which you can determine where a particular painting or sculpture is within a building.

Unfortunately, the coverage tends to be uneven. For instance, very little is said about the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum that houses Michelangelo's second Pieta, Donatello's Mary Magdalene, and other significant sculpture by Donatello, della Robbia and others.

The listings of hotels and restaurants are limited, and for our purposes, were of little use. Better to use a current version of a guide dedicated to those subjects.

The best museum guides are the small inexpensive (about 8 euro) ones that are available at the major museums. These exist for the Academy, the Bargello, San Lorenzo, San Marco and the Museum of Archaeology. There is also an excellent, slightly larger guide to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo that can be bought in their bookshop (You do not have to enter the museum to use the bookshop, which has a fine collection of books on Florence). We bought an entertaining and useful book there (Alta Mcadam's "Americans in Florence" [ISBN 88-09-013157-1]), which offers a series of walks with recommendations for sights restaurants, and hotels along the way. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be available in the U.S., although some of the same information may be available in the Guinti Guide to Florence.

Also consider purchasing the Knopf Guide to Florence, which is less functional but has beautiful pictures of the city.

The best map is the Knopf CityMap. Compact and very useful.

Recommendation: Our most impressive and beautiful experience in Florence was attending the afternoon vespers in the crypt of San Miniato, at which the Benedictine monks sing Gregorian chants. It's as if you were taken back 1,000 years. Truly lovely. Every afternoon at 4:30.

One last thing: Be sure to check the hours of the places you plan to visit. Many of the museums (e.g., the Bargello and the Medici Library) are only open during very short hours and only on certain days.

On my trip to Florence last June, I equipped myself with a map and this book and it was all I needed. The book is informative and full of rich detail about every inch of Florence/Tuscany's landmarks, sights, restaurants, nightlife, etc. Mapped with detailed illustrations of Florence's many Renaissance churches, you can literally appreciate everything as you make your way through each one of them. Additionally, the book lends useful tips about public transportation and travel, hotel information and what to expect, etc.
While useful in your travels, this is also one to keep handy in your personal library if you should ever need a brief cultural or historical reference. Sadly and finally, however, this book is no substitute for the real thing. Go to Florence!