Rick Steves' Italy 2011 with map Paperback – September 28, 2010

I went on my honeymoon to Italy and this book was the only thing I used to guide me around Rome. Rick Steves is simply AWESOME! One example I remember was following his tip about buying the Colosseum tickets on the Colina Palatina booth, in order to skip the HUGE lines on the Colosseum! I did just that and me and my wife went laughing ALL the way from the back of a 200 person line to the entrance and into the Colosseum! AMAZING! This book is filled with MANY, MANY secrets like this and I couldn't find any situation on which Mr. Steves was wrong. If you are going to Italy, take this book with you and SAVE a TON of money! Highly Recommended!

I don't know how to rate this, since I can't find a place to review only the Kindle version.

I've been using Rick Steves' guidebooks for many years, and feel as if he's one of my favorite travel companions. So as I'm planning a trip with some friends, I bought them the "dead tree book" version of the 2011 guide. I bought myself the kindle version. And the books are not the same! There are big hunks of restaurant and sleeping versions that are missing in the Kindle version. And unlike the Frommer's kindle versions of travel guides, there's no place to go online that allows you to print out the maps.

Quite a disappointment.

I took this book (and "Let's Go-Italy") on my 3-week solo cycling tour of Northern Italy and Tuscany. Rick has so much useful information for the independent traveller.
My itinerary was from Florence to Siena, then back up to San Gimignano, Volterra, back through Siena to Montalcino, Pienza, and Montepulciano. I then rode down to Orvieto and the short ride to Civita di Bagnoregio. A train to Venice, then my ride through the Dolomites and Alto Adige from Cortina d'Ampezzo to Brunico,Bressanone, and Bolzano. From there I went west to Passo di Tonale, the Gavia Pass (a couple of days before the Giro d'Italia), then to Bormio, Tirano, and over to Lake Como. I wrapped things up in Milano.
Rick's guide was invaluable, not only for the information about these places, but also for the fact that he opens up the wonders of the hill towns that most guidebooks ignore (you can't enjoy "discovering" places that you can't find in other guides!). The hill towns were definitely a highlight of the trip.
Rick's sensitivity to the more adventurous, independent tourist results in the feeling that you're travelling with a friend who knows the place.
Cyclists: don't buy a map in the States. Get situated in whatever country you're going to, and chances are the book stores in the foreign airport, and even service stations, will have a much better selection, which you can tailor to your itinerary. One personal caveat about riding in the Italian Alps and Dolomites is to be prepared to skirt tunnels. Unlike France, many tunnels in Italy are off-limits to cyclists. It was so confusing trying to find alternate routes around the tunnels, that I finally saw the need for a Garmin GPS for my bicycle, after 20 years of cycling in foreign countries!Read more ›

Rick Steves's guide is a valuable resource for the regions and cities that are covered. It is stronger on the practical and logistical aspects of traveling (travel, hotels, restaurants, etc.) than it is on the historical and artistic, but no guide can include everything. What it does it does well. The appendix in particular is chock-full of rich and useful information.

My major complaint about this book (and the reason for the 3 stars) is that its coverage is far from complete. It is ostensibly a guide to Italy--i.e., the whole country--but it leaves out entire regions. Provinces overlooked without so much as a word include not only the almost universally slighted (by guidebooks generally) Friuli Venezia Giulia, Molise, Abruzzo, and Basilicata, but such often-visited regions as Emilia Romagna, Sicily, and Sardinia. There's almost a logic to the exclusion of the southern provinces: the guide essentially works its way down the boot from north to south, but stops abruptly at the Amalfi Coast. How Emilia Romagna got passed over on the way down I'll never understand. An entire 75-page (!) chapter is devoted to the Cinque Terre, but Bologna, Parma, Modena, and Ferrara get precisely zero love. My wife and I discovered these egregious gaps as we tried to plan our visit to, where else, Emilia Romagna! I understand, of course, that no guidebook can offer truly universal coverage or be all things to all tourists, but there is a large gap between what one would quite reasonably expect from this book in terms of coverage and what it actually delivers. There needs to be a clear indication to the customer--if not in the title than in the description on the back--of what a guide does or does not contain. Such honest disclosure is lacking. For the moment, then, caveat emptor.

We have used Rick Steves guides before and are familiar with his format which matches our style to go it on our own. The book is well organized with an emphasis on walking tours. We have been to Italy several times so the guide was more of a refresher, to keep us up to date but still very usefull in our planning. Information on sites is current and his website updates are a nice complimentary asset which helps if you have a guide which is a year or two old. If you want extensive information about hotels and restaurants this guide will not meet your needs.