The Rough Guide to Italy [Paperback]

Ros Belford (Author), Martin Dunford (Author), Celia Woolfrey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2001 | Series: Rough Guide Travel Guides

The most complete handbook on one of Europe's most captivating countries. Includes expert accounts of every type of attraction, from Mantua's Palazzo Ducale to the rocky coves of the Tyrrhenian coast. Up to the minute recommendations of the best places to eat, drink and stay, to suit all budgets. Illuminating coverage of the Italian history, art, architecture, culture and customs. Practical tips on activities ranging from wine-tasting in Umbria to hiking the Dolomites.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Written by Ros Belford, Martin Dunford and Celia Woolfrey.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1184 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 5 Updated edition (May 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1858286921
• ISBN-13: 978-1858286921
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,473,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best, February 12, 2002

By 

I. Seyb (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rough Guide to Italy (Paperback)

Now, a lot of people want their guidebooks to be long lists of hotels plus a list of the authors' idea of the most important places. If, however, you don't plan your itinerary ahead, so you always seem to end up at the hostel cause that's the only open place left, accomadation listings are less important. Let's Go usually has more extensive budget sleeps, but neither it nor Lonely Planet can compare for the coverage of out of the way places. Some people want a guidebook with lots of pictures to show them where they want to go. Rough Guides you have to read, and you have to read them carefully. There's a certain skill involved, because they don't show a strong ranking of "desirableness," and they don't shy from the less-perfect sides of what is, after all, a real, contemporary country, not a museum. The upside (and it's a big upside) is that you can find places that never make it into the other books. I was in Italy last summer, and I spent days in Gubbio (in Umbria), and Peschici (in Puglia). When I'd talk to people in hostels later on in big towns, they would never have heard of the places I'd loved, because they weren't mentioned in their guidebooks. There is so much more to Italy that what you can get out of an Insight Guide or a Let's Go, and you owe it to yourself to find some of it. Sure, it's heavy, and some of the maps are inferior, but there are a lot of them, and they're for places Let's Go has never seen.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Organization problems hurt this otherwise good series, June 20, 2004

By 

voracious reader "hailnero" (Lawrence, KS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Italy (Paperback)

Like other reviewers, I found that the Rough Guides had both positive and negative aspects, overall making it a book that I would recommend, but only with another guide to balance it out. I found the detailed write-ups of indivdiual cities helpful--there's no skimping on everything you need for a well-informed orientation. You get more of that here than in any other guide out there, with the possible exception of the text-exclusive Blue Guides. The lack of pictures doesn't bother me; most of those tourist, photo-op shots are silly and misleading anyway and they just expand a book's girth. The Rough Guides are already big and heavy to carry without tons of useless pictures. In using RG during a four-month stay in France and Italy, I found that the most troublesome issue for me was simply the organization--it's not the type of guide you can pull out and immediately go to clearly marked sections and subsections to find info. This is especially a hinderance when looking through a city's transportation information. You have to wade through paragraphs to find the information buried somewhere in the middle. That might be ok if you have hours to pick though every sentence in the section on Rome, but if you're traveling quickly, or changing plans and need the info now--good luck. A restructuring of the format to more distinctly separate and highlight areas of information would do wonders for this series and would instantly make it so much better. Lonely Planet actually does this much more successfully. The directions on how to get to a place are also sometimes uneccessarily difficult. Maps are a bit small and difficult to read, too. Overall it is a good guide that is less user-friendly than it could be. Use it along with something else.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "It's a "rough" guide, no doubt about that..., September 17, 2001

By 

O. Buxton "Olly Buxton" (Highgate, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rough Guide to Italy (Paperback)

I picked up this Rough Guide to Italy for a brief trip to Umbria and Lazio because my local shop sold out of the Let's Go equivalent.

It annoyed me intensely.

Firstly, it is unreasonably negative in tone throughout - someone who hadn't been there could be forgiven for thinking Italy is a crummy place with only a few mouldy monuments and the odd fresco to recommend it, which as a general impression is criminally wrong, and it's astounding that a guidebook should set out to give it. P>Secondly, Some of the maps aren't accurate and don't appear to have been checked or proof read. Throwaway lines such as "[the tourist office has] lots of reasonable but characterless rooms on their books and appartments to rent" on the basis of my anecdotal evidence simply aren't fair -

Thirdly it's dreadfully turgid. Cheeky charm in a guide of this sort is obligatory these days, but the writing style is frequently leaden. Witness the following insight, which is typically put: "Of all Italy's historic cities, it's perhaps Rome which exerts the most compelling fascination." Good grief.

Plus points - the "contexts" section, which overviews art, architecture, history, and the political and social set-up in italy (you know, the mafia, camorra and all that good stuff!), is a good read. There are plenty of maps of little places, too, but they're not collosally accurate. There are a few fairly uninteresting colour pics, but for my money they could have been left out and a buck shaved off the cover price.

There must be better guides to Italy than this.