Customer Reviews

Venice & The Veneto (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

OK . . . I'm actually a travel book addict, and I bought four different (yes, I know it's excessive) guides for my recent trip to Venice. The DK guide was my favorite. It is completely engrossing, with actual pictures of the food, the palazza, many of the art works, etc. It's a perfect guide for a 'high points' look at the most touristed sights: the Basilica, the Doge's Palace, etc. My favorite feature turned out to be "A View of the Grand Canal." I actually sat with the guide open in my lap on the vaporetto ride from Piazalle Roma to my stop near the Salute and could watch as every important church and palace on the canal passed by. It was so much fun! And the guide is absolutely gorgeous! Even after my trip, I have enjoyed just flipping through the guide to take a look at some of the beautiful photos and drawings. It's a great souvenir in that it has photos of many things you are not permitted to photograph: the insides of churches, museums, etc.

So why only four stars? Well, the guide is actually a little light on more practical information, such as where you can get a good meal for a decent price. It's full of all the expected tourist recommendations (e.g., Harry's Bar), without telling you about how to navigate a good baccari like a Venetian (although I did think the pages which included descriptions AND photos of typical Venetian dishes was excellent). If you have a budget of a few hundred dollars a day to plop down on food, that may be ok. The rest of us will need some help. And while it may be an unfair criticism, the guide gives all its information in lire. Unless you want to carry around a currency converter to figure out the Euro equivalent, I'd supplement this guide with another. In fairness though, I'd like to give it 4.5 stars. It is really an excellent book.

This wonderful guide book is crammed with pertinent information, helpful as well as lovely photographs, detailed maps and valuable suggestions. Refering to it constantly while we explored Venice enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of this enchanting city and somehow with all this the book is remarkably light weight. I plan to buy only Eyewitness Travel Guides in the future!

DK's Eyewitness Travel Guides are our best travel companion during our tour of Europe. Full of tips, pictures, maps, site info, history, local reference ... every page is not only helpful but beautiful. The layout anf format is very innovative and reader friendly, a ture standing out from any other travel books. It was interesting to see that almost everywhere we went, we saw other people (tourists apparently) holding and checking the same DK book on the street.
The coverage is comprehensive and growing year after year, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice ... every city we went have its own Eyewitness serie. We studied them before our trip, consulted them during our trip, and kept them as memo and photo book after our trip. They are simply essential part of the travel fun.

I recommend buying indiviual city/area book wherever possible instead of the country book. For example, buy Rome, Florence, and Venice books instead of Eyewitness Italy (unless your destination doesn't have its own Eyewitness). That way you get more detailed and targeted info.

Eyewitness did its usual brilliant job with Venice & Veneto. I bought many guides available to this city but took only two with me: DK Eyewitness and City Secrets (the latter one is an excellent assortment of subjective specialist views, get it if you take your trip seriously).

Descriptions of usual high-profile highlights and lesser-known places are clear and accurate, as usual, pictorial plans of churches and streets are very helpful.

Accommodation and dining sections are quite superficial, I increasingly find these parts not the strongest bit of Eyewitness guides: they tend to focus on most famous places which rarely represent the best value for money and often are shameless tourist traps. In fact, there is no need to list specific places - what the guide could do is present general guidelines on what to avoid (such as places with menus in five languages) and what to look for (places that don't take credit cards, for example).

I found the map of Venice at the end of the book completely sufficient and as easy to use as could be possible in the Venetian maze of streets of multiple names and multiple spellings.

Veneto part is not really the best bit of the book - Verona is covered only adequately and Padova receives simple an inadequate treatment. The authors probably had to find a balance between thickness of the book and depth of coverage.

I was pleased with coverage of less obvious areas such as Dorsoduro and Canareggio, which are still inexplicably ignored by 90% of visitors (well, maybe they don't have time).

All the criticisms above are observations of only minor glitches of what is a very, very strong guide and what probably should be your first choice for a trip to Venice.

Guidebooks in general are going to have their limitations. The gentleman that complained about this one answered his own complaint. A larger, folding map is certainly an essential when trying to navigate (and I use the term literally here) this city. That said, this appeared to me on a recent visit to be extremely helpful, especially in terms of giving me an artistic/cultural overview of the main sites. The same could be said about the same company's editions of Rome and Italy proper. They don't dwell on frivolous detail. They are relatively compact and they will guide you to the places you want to go if you are interested primarily in art, history, and architecture, which I was. As an aside, for anyone who is serious about art I would suggest that before you go you aquaint or refresh yourself with Vasari's <Lives of the Artists> (Penguin suggested), Cellini's "Autobiography," and any Art book published by Rizzoli. Buy your guidebooks beforehand and determine which artists and which works are most important to you and try to pre-plan in your minds eye at least the path you want to take. Also ask some travel agents or discover on a website the museum hours and when the publice is allowed in free. My only chance to visit the Vatican, for instance, came on a Sunday, when there was free admission and early closure, which led to a rush-job through the sistine chappel. Don't rely entirely on a site such as Rick Steves. My friend did and thought he could pretty much wing it through Italy. The "play it by ear approach" will lead to unbelievably costly delays and dissapointments. Plan, plan, plan.

The first time I went to Italy I only had this travel book with me. In fact, I don't think you need any other book when you visit this beautiful city. It's got pictures, maps, description, history, and guide for where to stay, eat, shop - depending on your budget. I spent four days and three nights sightseeing by myself in Venice - and it was great and exciting!! The guide was very helpful in helping navigate through the city's winding streets. Then again, there are signs posted everywhere on how to get to the main sites. The street names were also well posted. In fact, I used Eyewitness' map in the back of this book to plan my trip and visits to sites. It's a very durable book and will hold up in your normal wear 'n' tear during your travels. I went back the second time and only relied on this book. There's no need for any other guide.!!

I bought this book before I went on a trip to italy. It is extremely informative about venice and has a lot of useful information. However, I have to agree that the map can be difficult to work with at times. I got pretty badly lost using it because it did not fully list all the 'streets'(there were 2 streets of the same name in the same area - go figure). However, My experience has been that maps in venice are dodgy at best.

My only real complaint about this book is it's weight. It's quite heavy to carry in a bag when you are sightseeing - aside from that - it's a very highly reccomended book if you are researching a trip to Venice. It's also great for re-identifying photos correctly later:)

I could not be more happier with the Eyewitness Travel Guide books. Last year my mother and I went to Prague and had the Prague book of the series with us. We relied on this book to guide us through the entire city, and it did. These books are absolutely wonderful. They are so helpful in finding you anything you need! They have detailed plans and maps of the cities, and provide you with information on just about everything! We just recieved the Venice & the veneto and florence & tuscany books. They have so much information about these cities amidst beautiful photographs and maps. You will not be dissappointed if you buy this book, or any other from the series. They are a lifesaver, and a tour guide in writing!

Me and my family went to Venice in February and we are very happy to have discovered this book before we left. It has almost all you need to survive in Venice. I'm very glad of all the good restaurants mentioned in the book and though they were a bit hard to find we really got there after all. The map is a bit small but you manage with it. The book also explaines the history of all the buildings and is very teaching. A great guide that you must have with you when you travel there. I noticed that I really wasn't the only one with the same book!

The best guide to Venezia and the Veneto. The pages about the Grand Canale deserve an award for its beauty and first quality information.