Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Italy 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What I like best about the Rough Guides is that they give critical reviews. They will point out the tourist traps and will give negative reviews. I find that Frommer's and Fodor's rarely point out the negatives to a particular hotel or site. The rough guide is very critical and is a great balance to these other guides. I would balance your trip to Italy with a Fodors (or Frommers) book because the maps and illustrations are often better and there are more higher-end hotels listed.
This book will help you decide where is best to spend your vacation in Italy. There are clear critical descriptions of all the regions and great general info on getting around in Italy.
If you aren't interested in "roughing" it and staying in lower priced hotels. The guides are still very useful in rating attractions, and areas in which to stay... but you will need another book to look at more moderate and luxury hotels.

I would definitely read this book before going to Italy.

Rough guide was recommended by a co-worker, whose suggestions I respect. I expected a guide that perhaps just stuck to basics.I PERUSED THE GUIDE for 4 days before my trip, and during air travel and stop-overs. I found all info accurate, especially appreciated history and language sections in back helpful. The only problem I encountered was the print was finer than the guides I had perused at the library, making reading in poor light situations difficult. Hostel info was accurate. Historical backround w was very helpful.

We have purchased The Rough Guide to France before and loved it. It was a very accurate and extremely helpful guide. Every recommendation turned out to be right on the money. The Rough Guide to Italy is a good guide, but not as good as the one for France. While the Italian history, the maps, the general area descriptions were excellent, many village / city specific recommendations were outdated and many places (mainly restaurants) listed in the book were not there in reality. We believe such differences between the two books really depend on the writers, and those who visited France simply wrote a better book. We would still recommend this book, but if you do the combination travel to France like we did, please know that the Italy version won't be as thorough and accurate as the French one.

This book is decidedly not for those who choose to rent a car as part of their visit to Italy. The "arrival" section of each town and region only discusses arrival by train or bus; nothing on roads or parking - either for towns or hotels. The chapter on Puglia mentions a coastal route, but then abruptly states, "you won't be able to come this way by train or bus anyway," and then jumps to a discussion of what's beyond the coastal route, since you obviously won't be able to visit the coastal route.

(For price discussion, I will precede numbers with an "e" for euros, as e1.)

The paragraph on car rental says "car rental in Italy is pricey... at around e250-e300 per week..." I have found a TWO week rental (April 2008) to be just over e300, including taxes and mandatory insurance coverage. Mandatory insurance is not mentioned by the guide, but it is what drives the price up. I agree that this is pricey, but it is about half the price of what the authors suggest.

Does this guidebook eschew the car more for political reasons? That can't be the case, as the planet would be better off if we didn't travel at all (and if we did not buy guidebooks.)

So, then, is this book geared to budget travelers? Not necessarily. The cost of train travel (for two) in Italy is comparable to the cost of car travel (even with gas approaching US$10/gal, in April 2008.) For example, the train from Rome to Milan, according to the authors, would cost e94 for 2 adults (about $145), roughly the same as a compact car and gas for the day. I'm certainly not advocating renting a car to drive from Rome to Milan, but if one was traveling from Rome to Perugia to Siena to Florence to Pisa to Cinque Terra and then to Milan over several days, the costs are comparable, and thus the choice if train vs car is not a budgetary choice. The authors should allow the traveler to weigh the cost/convenience/stress factors of each.

But, for real evidence that this book is not geared as budget traveler's guide, consider the nine price ranges for accommodations: (under e50), (e51-75), (e76-100),... (e251-300), (e300+). At April 2008 exchange rates of e1=$1.60, e50=$80, e75=$120, and e300=$480. Certainly at these levels of expenditure, a budget traveler would be much better off financially by renting a car and staying outside of towns in cheaper rooms. Unfortunately, this option isn't really covered in this guidebook. (And, honestly, do people who spend $480+/night for a hotel really buy a Rough Guide and plan their own vacation?!)

Generally, I quite like Rough Guides; they tend to be much better written, more colorful and honest, than one of the leading brands ("LP") which refuses to even say something bad about Newark, NJ, in its USA book. But, generally speaking, Rough Guides also tend to be better than this particular Rough Guide.

I do very much appreciate the inclusion of detailed instructions on using the buses and trains; this information is often the best reason to buy a guidebook. But, by omitting everything about renting a car in Italy, and at the same time having an $80 lowest price category for accommodation, this book ultimately is not ideal for any audience and disappoints.

These authors must realize that a sensible way for many people to visit Italy would be with some time spent in major cities without a car, and some time in the countryside behind the wheel. I have no problem omitting the discussion of "what to do with your car in Rome, Milan and Venice", but the omission of suggested driving routes, parking locations and sites along the route to smaller towns and national parks is a major oversight and a serious negative of this guidebook.

Thus, not enough information if you rent a car. Not much budget travel information. Good if you have an intermediate or generous travel budget and want to travel by train.

The included material is good; the omitted material is glaring. Obviously my review does not suggest an alternative book, and thus I am guilty of the same problem of omission for which I am criticizing the authors. But, I wasn't paid for this review, nor was writing it my job! I net the pros/cons of the book to 3 stars.

We were planning to travel to the heel of Italy (Puglia region) and there really aren't any books that cover that area alone. Usually I buy other brands (Moon or Lonely Planet) but after comparing the information on Puglia side by side with the other books I decided that the Rough Guide better met our needs due to the quantity and practicality of the information provided (many of the smaller towns weren't even covered in the other books). We purchased local books in Italy that were more focused on the region but ended up using the Rough Guide every day.

I don't agree with the previous negative reviews on this book. It was my sole guide book for a 10-day trip around Italy (Venice, Florence, the Cinque Terre, and Pisa) and I was never lacking for anything. I also travelled by train and mostly on a budget, so that may affect my opinion of the book. To be honest, I'm biased towards Rough Guides, but that's because I've used them several times and they've never let me down. The book physically holds up well - mine still looks like new after spending 10 days in a backpack. I love the maps; they are accurate and generally there when you need them, although I would have liked to have had one for Levanto (near the Cinque Terre). Rough Guides are typically also packed with historical background and good suggestions that will often take you off the "tourist trail".

I particularly liked this book's suggestions to reserve tickets for Florence museums ahead of time via phone or internet and to hike the Cinque Terre main trail (the Sientero Azzurro/Blue Trail) from Riomaggiore back to Monterosso, as it was definitely much easier that way. I also loved the historical/background information throughout the book, especially for Florence.

Overall, I really liked this book. I'm always open to restaurants and hotels that I walk by or come across for other reasons (as I think any traveler should be), so I don't depend on my guide books for absolutely everything. I also tend not to plan my trips in much detail before I arrive in a country - just general destinations and first and last nights' lodging - I figure the rest out as I go. But this book got me around Italy with no problems and I was thrilled with my Rough Guide (again).

Additional information for potential travelers to Italy: I supplemented this guide book with a Rough Guide Italian phrasebook and the Rough Guide Venice map - both were excellent. I used a Teach Yourself Beginner's Italian before I got to Italy and used a free map of Florence that we got in a hotel (although I did use the Florence map in the book to get to and from the train station and to our first hotel that was not close to the center). I used booking.com to find hotels in Florence and found two decent two-star hotels for 40 euro a night, which was a great deal!

The Rough Guide is the way to go for touring and paying fair prices for what you get. Make sure to buy the most recent year and you'll be good to go. (and reserve way ahead of time in Italy especially in Venice, Florence!) The Rough Guide to Italy 9 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)The hotel and restaurant recommendations are reliable. The sometimes not-so-politically correct histories within are amusing enough to read the book cover-to-cover. Plus if a place is lousy they tell you not to waste your time instead of sending you there as a plug to sell the guide. Other guides sing praises about places you go to that are trash heaps filled with other tourists that read the same misinformed guide! Yes because it is a guide and reality changes faster than print: very, very rarely you will find something out-of-date or be disappointed by a recommendation.
I've tried them all. The competition is not worth considering as they are almost always outdated or so limited to one set itinerary. Fodor's = way too expensive for what you get hotels, restaurants for rich American tourists. Let's Go = hohum, many establishments do not still exist and if they do you'll be disappointed! (Best pizza in Parma = inedible) Lonely Planet = inspiring photos but lacking substance. Rick Steve's = ridiculous inaccurate hand-drawn maps and the one proscribed itinerary to visit an entire country.
Go Rough Guide. No regrets.

It is better to have this book than nothing. It does have some basic information in it. But there are also very basic things left out. Things like practical information to help with planning how to get where you want to go are missing or wrong. Moreover, the ability to get a good overview of what, among the endless possibilities of attractions, are really the ones most likely to be of interest, is simply not possible from the guidebook. Hence, we actually bought another guide book while we were in Italy to complement all that was lacking in this one. Especially when traveling to regions commonly covered by other books, such as we were (Rome and Naples), another option would probably be better.