Customer Reviews

Moleskine City Notebook: Roma

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This is a very unusual product and I would strongly encourage anyone considering getting one to be completely aware of what it is before they purchase it. First, if you are looking for a single travel guide to prepare you for your trip to New York (or anywhere else there is a guide for), this is very close to worthless, if not entirely worthless. I would call one's attention to the title of the product. It is a "Notebook." That means that most of the pages are blank. This literally is a book for taking notes in.

So what do you get when you buy this? Every book in the series follows the same format. First there is a personal information page with address, phone, allergies, family doctor, passport number, then map information with public transportation maps. Then follows information on the various forms of transportation with phone numbers and websites, including cabs, buses, other forms of public transportation, and airports. There are some blank itinerary pages, measurement and speed conversion charts, size conversion charts (for shoppers), then a long series of neighborhood maps, including an index. And that's it. The final two-thirds of the notebook are blank. The next 20 or so pages are completely blank and unlined for whatever use you want to put them to. Next come several pages intended for writing down names of restaurants, bars, museums, historical sites, hotels, or whatever. The book also comes with unlabeled tabs with stickers to use as desired (for theaters, concert halls, or whatever you desire) as well as tracing paper for, as the label says, "Itineraries or Whatever." Finally, there is the usual pocket at the back that is found in all Moleskine products.

For some people this is going to be an absolutely useless product. But for many this will be remarkably useful. In fact, I can envision two uses for this notebook. First, those who are planning a trip to one of the places for which Moleskine has produced a book. Let's say one has consulted the Blue guide, the Eyewitness Guide (by DK), a Rough Guide, the Michelin guide, and the Let's Go guide. Maybe you've bought all of these, making for five guides. No way do you want to drag all of these on your trip or more than one on your flight. So what might you do? You might take the Moleskin Notebook, record into it all the places you want to see, restaurants you want to dine at, museums you want to stroll through, and anything else you want to do while in your destination of choice, and record it there. So the Moleskine City Notebook can serve as a distillation of all the various travel guides, web sites, and other resources you have consulted. And instead of hauling about a large Fodor's guide, you can carry about this small Notebook that can easily fit into a backpack, purse, should bag, or even pocket.

The only downside is that the Moleskine City Notebook is only as good as you make it. If you do a good job of planning your trip, it will be filled to the brim with useful and helpful information. If not, it will be as unhelpful as you have made it.

There is a second use to which the City Notebook can be put to use, though it is not one for which it was primarily designed. You could use it for the city in which you live, should you live in one of the cities for which one is made. I live, for instance, in Chicago. I have bought one of these so that I can over time use it to record every bit of helpful information that I might find useful or helpful. I can record what hours the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore (the real one, not the trade version on 57th Street) is open. The hours for the Chicago Public Library and the Newberry Library. Phone numbers of restaurants and addresses of bars. And so on and so forth. Granted, these books will only benefit those who live in one of those cities, but for the U.S. New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are pretty populated areas.

So this is a very well conceived product though it absolutely has to be stressed that it is a specialized one. Please note: THIS ISN'T FOR EVERYONE. If you don't want to use the Notebook to plan your trip it is going to be very close to worthless. I'll emphasize again: this is only as good a product as you make it. But if you use it to help you plan your trip, it could be the single item you would most loathe to be without after your notebook.

The best guidebook you will ever read is the one you write for yourself. This is what Moleskine tells us in the inside of their little book. I can not put it more plainly than the reviewer names Robert has put it above, I can only reiterate his points.

I lugged one around Rome with me that I had started to prepare prior to my journey. I searched the internet looking for restaurants and sites I wanted to visit and I ticked them off my list as I found them and amended the list as I saw fit when a new place or restaurant gained my approval. It's a very elastic tool if you are into that sort of thing. Inside of mine are times certain museums open and close, where you can find food when all of Rome is shut down for siesta, reviews of restaurants and sites I found happenstance. Also, invaluable tips I discovered as consequence of my being in Rome, things you don't get from a guidebook, only those things you can gain by experience. Things like: Purchase your Diet Coke from a Tabacchi store, Refill the bottles with water from Rome's famous fountains. Did you know you can drink out of the fountains of Rome? Would you drink out of a decorative fountain in YOUR city? I didn't think so. This is the sort of knowledge you retain with this little book. The next time I go to Europe, no matter the city, I will take a ride on a double decker bus on the first day. I learned and have recorded in my book that this is the quickest way to see all the major sites and learn the layout of the city. You can better plan out your sightseeing with that kind of advanced knowledge.

Also, I wrote Moleskine BEGGING for them to make one for Houston. Having one of these for your own city would be amazing. You could write in your opinions of your favorite restaurants, make a list of what to do if you find yourself unable to sleep in the middle of the night and an uncontrollable craving for a Frappucchino, good places to park downtown when you don't have any cash on you. A book like this begs to be used for such a purpose.

So why go through the trouble? Well, think about making a travel log of your trip to Rome. I'm 27 now. When I've had a few more winters in me it might dawn on me that, getting on in my years, I would not dare leave this world without beholding the Colosseum's grand and ancient pillars one last time. I'd dust off my book, and having had the foresight at such a young age to write down the intricacies of the city of Rome, this time when I arrive, I arrive not as a tourist, but as an old friend.

These books are a good idea for the repeat visitor to a city-- basically just a place for notes in the lovely (I think) Moleskine format. The maps, though, can be found better and cheaper on other places. MORE IMPORTANT, this seller has claimed a falsely inflated list price and consequent discount that is misleading. The list price for these books is 17.95. Check in any book store. Shame on the seller.