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43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Travel Book, June 21, 2004
This review is from: Let's Go 2004: Italy (Let's Go: Italy) (Paperback)
Let's Go is one of the best for the young traveller, and this book is no exception. It goes into lots of detail about the different major cities, providing maps, reviews, and suggestions for places to visit off the beaten path. One of the highlights of this book is the walking tour suggestions--they have directions on how to take several strolls around different Italian cities and see all the major sites. The book provides a guide for some of the smaller, less known areas in Italy. It's easy enough to find guides for Florence, Rome, Milan, and Venice, but Let's Go provides great food and lodging suggestions for smaller places like Lucca, Assisi, and Ravenna. The only problem with this book is that it doesn't offer as many budget options as some of their other books. It was hard to find places to stay in Venice that we could afford based on their suggestions. They also did not make it clear that some of the housing options were outside the city limits. Details like those would have been helpful. That said, the book is still really helpful and full of information. Their budget food options are excellent! We got great food all over Italy for next to nothing thanks to Let's Go and managed to find lots of stuff to do for FREE in Rome when we were almost out of cash.
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good guide for the entry level italian traveler, December 10, 2003
This review is from: Let's Go 2004: Italy (Let's Go: Italy) (Paperback)
If this is your first visit to Italy or your first visit to one of the many 'regions' of Italy(Venice, Napoli, Firenze etc...) this is the perfect book. With separate maps of most Italian towns and easy to read legends showing the locations of train stations, bus stops and cheaper-then-average hotels/hostels you will have no problem navigating the otherwise precipitous Italian landscape. The focus of most 'Lets Go' books is the lower end hotels so if you're looking for four star elegance you may be slightly dismayed. Nevertheless this volume has excellent introductions to Italian history, culture, food and geography. Separate sections detail concerns for women and the gay/lesbian traveler. A very helpful guide to Italy, this is slightly superior to the similar 'lonely planet' travel guide. Its sections on Venice, Naples and Palermo are essential to navigating those harder then average cities. The 2004 edition may be slightly inferior to the 2002 edition if you can pick up the older one(not much has changed in Italy so the traveler need not be concerned about hotel closings or the statue of David moving!)
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Get the Lonely Planet for Italy instead, October 27, 2010
This review is from: Let's Go 2004: Italy (Let's Go: Italy) (Paperback)
Quick Verdict: Too expensive, too many errors, and too few diamonds in the rough. Opt for a Lonely Planet instead.
Full Review: I backpacked through most major cities in Italy for about a month during two separate seasons on two trips with five different people total. I can wholeheartedly say that when I was pressed to rely upon the travel guide for a cheap but nice place to eat, sleep or explore, the Lonely Planet won out through and through--get that instead (I don't work for them, but I have tested their guides through all of Western and Eastern Europe). In this edition in particular, there are a few too many errors for my taste, wrong phone numbers in Florence, incorrect opening times for a hostel in Venice cost us a day's travel and it turned out that the hostel was split by gender (unmentioned in Let's Go), and maps that were too small to read effectively hold this guide back. Also, I like to tear out portions of the guide so that I have smaller packets of what I need for the day, the manner in which this book is bound does not facilitate this sort of light traveling and one is left looking like a tourist everywhere with this tome. As a bright point for this book, the section on the Vatican was more helpful than I expected, and the small snippets about hot spots in Trastevere, Rome were awesome.
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