Customer Reviews

Garmin City Navigator for Detailed Maps of Italy and Greece (microSD/SD Card)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Let's be up front about this. Maps, GPS, directions from the guy on the street, you're going to eventually get lost driving in a foreign country where you don't speak the language. That being said I can not adequately express the joy and lack of tension I felt driving in Tuscany while we had our Garmin City Navigator of Italy and Greece. The criticisms mentioned in Irina's review just prior to this one are all true, but in the end, so what. On those occasions where the data did not have the new off ramp or entrance to the I22 or the creation of the new roundabout in Siena you simply press detour and in about 5 seconds the new route is calculated. For me the beauty of this product was that in the end I knew it would get me there. Maybe it didn't seem to be the best route, but I could certainly not have done better with a map and my wife calling out directions. The only thing I would be aware of is the old - garbage in garbage out - advice. How you get there will be determined to a great extent on how precise your end location address is. If you are going to Florence but don't know the address of the parking garage, there is only so much the Garmin can do for you. (Been there, done that.) A couple of hints. 1. When in doubt, zoom out on the map, click on the location you are headed to and save. Some locations just don't appear in the address list no matter how many times you try to type in the name. I found this was often due to my misunderstanding of how towns, cities, and streets were categorized. That being said once I found the location on the map I was usually given the proper name and was able to find it in the data base; 2. The "attractions" section has a wonderful supply of information, including parking garages in the cities - found that one out too late; 3. If you are lost or get to an unidentified one way street, be quick with the detour button (menu - detour), it will save you a lot of time; 4. If you are taking a long drive, double check. Plot the route on the Garmin, then zoom out and use the touch screen to drag the map from beginning to end. Make sure that you and the GPS are in agreement as to where you are going. Had that problem going to the Coast. We were about 10 minutes away and the GPS took us up a mountain - as my wife said, this doesn't look like the beach. My fault since I had used the incorrect ending address so therefore, finally; 5. Bring a map - what can I say.

Oddly, the Product Details do not contain a very important piece of information: the map version. I suspect this Product is the same "CN Europe NT Italy and Greece Version 9" map that was available last year on just SD card (but not microSD). If so, I have a couple of comments regarding it.
My opinion, based on our 2007 trip to Tuscany, is: it certainly is a useful product but you cannot always rely on it. Even if you have this product and a GPS with you, still take along a good road atlas (such as Atlante Stradale d'Italia) for global route planning, and, wherever you plan to stay or visit more than once, always try to get a detailed local map.
Now some particular examples:
The V9 map was already noticeably obsolete in 2007. It was missing some new rotaries and ramps and some newly build highway extents. Once we missed our exit because of that.
Some places of interest were located incorrectly on the map. E.g. the railroad station in Poggibonsi, Tuscany, is located on the map on the wrong side of the tracks. The GPS brought us to a place from where there was no access to the station, no parking etc. When we realized what happened and manually directed the GPS to take us to the spot on the opposite side of the tracks, the GPS navigated us to a tunnel that we could not even enter because it was one way (the wrong way for us). Luckily, we had a local map that we used to find another railroad crossing! (I guess I could try the GPS "Detour" button and may be that would work out, but at the time I was just fed up with it!)
I could list many other annoying quirks some of which could be attributed to the map data (which I guess is produced by NAVTEQ) and some to the Garmin navigation system, but that would not be appropriate for this brief review.
And, of course, there were many cases when everything worked flawlessly and the product was of great help.

Just returned from a two week driving trip thru northern Italy and used my Garmin NUVI 350 with the SM card for Italy - I would have been extremely frustrated if I did not have this navigational device with me every time we entered one of the major cities...It took us to each hotel (or other attraction we were trying to locate) even when we missed turns etc...I would highly recommend this to anyone unfamiliar with driving in Italy - it's worth the $99 and more..

It was great to have a GPS in Italy and the price of the SD card was fine. I was using a Garmin 760 GPS unit that works very well in the US. Nevertheless, I discovered that you should not expect it to work as well as it does with your US map. Too often, I found myself passing the exit before I could identify it from the GPS instructions. Probably, that was sometimes my own fault in trying to understand the mispronounced Italian street names that were identified with too much information--sort of like trying to read the overhead route directions that contained directions to several places, all in a foreign language.
The quirkiness of the guidance was annoying. For example, on one occasion I was on on a major road (comparable to an interstate road in the US) and the GPS said to drive on it for 60 miles. I knew that to be correct, having been on the road before. I drove about 10 miles at about 80 miles an hour (yet being passed by the other drivers). Suddenly, the GPS started telling me to "go 500 yards and make a legal U-turn." I knew I had another 50 miles to go so I ignored that instruction (and it was a physical impossibility to make a U-turn on such a road). For another 5 minutes, it kept telling me to make that U-turn, after which it stopped doing so and reflected the fact that I had another 45 miles to go to my destination.
Despite these issues, I recommend the SD card for anyone driving in Italy. Overall, it did its job, and if you realize it is quirky, you will be OK. It is not perfect, but it is better than trying to read foreign maps and asking for directions when there is a language barrier. If nothing else, its pronunciation of Italian street names will keep you amused.

We just got back from a two week vacation in Italy. We rented a car and ultimately drove about 1400 miles between Rome, Pompeii, Abruzzo/Sulmona, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Padova, Venice, and Milan. I could never have done this trip without the GPS.

CONS: only a few. When we first got to Rome the GPS (Nuvi 265WT) didn't initially pick up any satellites, especially indoors. After about 2 days and while walking outdoors it started to pick up satellites and from there it worked fine. Also, it directed me to a parking garage in Siena which ultimately led me down a one-way street going the wrong way. This created a little traffic issue and some temporary stress but ultimately we re-directed to the same garage. Lastly, our hotel near Venice was located on a pedestrian-only piazza so the GPS literally led me to where I really wasn't supposed to be, though next to the hotel where an attendant led us to a parking place.

PROS: For me the GPS saved our trip. I could never have driven to the places we went relying only on maps. My wife and I would have killed each other. I couldn't read most of the signs and many of the local Italians didn't speak English thus couldn't give us directions.

The GPS maps were very detailed and accurate and literally led me from point-to-point. It was easy to pre-load destinations (either by address or specific name) as well as parking locations. It was easy to convert the format from miles to kilometers. I even drove in Rome where the streets are small, random, and loaded with cars and scooters. I always zoomed in the GPS to provide the most detail and simply followed the purple line to my destinations.

For $70 on Amazon (similar price on Ebay) this was a minimal expense which saved our trip and made the driving a fun part of the vacation. Unless you speak fluent Italian and enjoy getting lost in a foreign country, don't drive in Italy without this.

It was exactly as expected and helped me get all around Athens. I did not use it around other areas of Greece or at all in Italy (yet). With it's network of roads downtown it was able to get me from point A to point B knowing the one-way streets. The only drawback was that it doesn't react as quickly as I hoped as it has to read from the SD card so there are slight delays.

I think it's great because you can go off the beaten path and know you can get to your destination.

The Garmin Italy map made driving in Tuscany easy. It is much better than the Michelin map which we also had with us. Michelin doesn't have all the small roads marked that we used as we drove throughout Tuscany. Having the Garmin was so reassuring because we knew right away if we made a wrong turn - recalculating! We found the small hill towns to be tricky, with many little winding roads coming into one intersection. The Garmin was essential here and always got us where we wanted to go. We used it many times to locate specific hotels and restaurants too. I was very impressed with this product and highly recommend it for anyone planning a trip.

We took this to Italy with our Nuvi 780. It's just better than nothing if you are in Italy. Just plugged this one in the SD slot and the system included this map. No password; no setup needed. However, it's content is quite questionable. We found that chunks of database for important cities and major roads are missing. For example, it didn't have a four lane road (actually six-lane if you include the side streets) that had major businesses including several three star hotels and a Toyota Dealer. Also, beware that it keeps routing through ZTL (Zone Traffic Restriction), and if you go through ZTL expect to pay 150-300 Euros as fine. It didn't have several other major roads. POI also seemed incomplete. It appeared as if programmers released this in a hurry hoping (taking very high risk) that people would not travel through the portion of the map which were not completed. In essence, very poor map.

I bought this for a trip to italy and wish i didnt waste the money. The maps were outdated. It tried sending us on roads that didnt exist and didnt have many of the paved public roads that we were driving on.

Great item! I don't know how I would have gotten though Northern Italy without it! I stayed at some smaller hotels on little streets and it was no problem. The only reason I did not give it a five star is because it included no written instructions.