Customer Reviews

Michelin Red Guide Italia 1999 Hotels-Restaurants (Serial-in Italian)

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The Red Guide to Italy is the most comprehensive hotel&restaurant guide to Italy I have the pleasure of reading. The format is easy to understand and follow. However, for those who are less knowledgeable in the Romantic languages, I would strongly urge Michelin publish an english version.

If you are not familiar with Red Guides, they provide no textual comments. Instead, cities and towns are listed alphabetically, with hotel and restaurant listings rated on a scale of 1 to 4. For each listing, symbols and numbers are used to indicate features such as credit cards accepted, number of rooms, min/max price for a double room, etc. Places that are deemed particularly desirable are marked in red or with a special symbol indicating a peaceful setting; in my experience, these establishments are uniformly outstanding and worth seeking out. Detailed and accurate city plans are provided for cities of sufficient size.

If you are sticking to major cities or just one region, then this guide is not really necessary. If, however, you plan to explore less touristed areas and/or multiple regions, then this guide will provide abundant and reliable hotel and restaurant listings. On a recent trip to Italy, I stayed in 6 hotels listed in this book and was pleased with all of them. I also ate in 7 listed restaurants, each providing a memorable experience. Although this is not a budget guide, there are many moderately priced selections; I spent between $50 and $75 for single rooms and as little as $15 for a 3-course dinner with wine (although $20-25 was the typical price for restaurants with ratings of 1 or 2).

The unexpected bonus with Michelin Red Guides is the great city maps, which are particularly useful for drivers. For example, I used the town maps for San Gimingnano and Volterra to locate public parking lots prior to my arrival, so that I could save time and park in the most convenient location. For driving in larger towns (which is rather stressful given their medieval layouts) it helped that one-way streets are marked with small red arrows, again allowing me to plan my route in advance.