Eyewitness Travel Guide to Venice and the Veneto (Paperback)

by Anna Streiffert (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive, engrossing, and just plain fun-to-read guidebook than the Eyewitness Travel Guide: Venice and the Veneto. Spilling over with all sorts of useful information for the traveler, you'll find three-dimensional drawings, floor plans, and detailed neighborhood maps, as well as timelines, charts--even the most scenic canal routes. Broken down into four sections--"Venice," the "Veneto Region" (which takes in Verona and the Dolomites), "Traveler's Needs," and "Survival Guide"--the guide paints a complete picture of the area. Readers will especially love the hundreds of color photos of everything from Venice's famous Rialto Bridge to the lavish costumes worn for Carnival. You'll also find illustrated neighborhood walks (including San Marco, Dorsoduro, and the Castello), room-by-room explanations of the Doge's Palace and the Basilica San Marco, and the best cafes (Caffe Florian), hotels (the Gritti Palace), and bars (Harry's, the birthplace of the bellini). --Jill Fergus

Review
...You feel, looking at them, as if you could close the book and step into the street. -- Contra Costa Times

...considered to be the world's best travel resource to over 30 destinations around the world, make it easier to plan a splendid vacation. -- North American Press Syndication

Both novice and experienced travelers will be captivated. -- US News & World Report

Each book is a visual as well as informational feast about a particular place. -- The New York Times

Easily the best city guides available today. -- PLAYBOY

Encyclopedic in scope, it's meant to be used before, during, and after your stay. -- Travel & Leisure

The Best Guidebooks Ever -- SKY MAGAZINE

The best travel guides ever. -- Sky Magazine -Delta In flight Magazine

The most graphically exciting and visually pleasing series on the market. -- Chicago Tribune

Want to know where to get a great espresso on your way to the Uffizi? Or how much to tip a hotel maid in New York City? Try these travel guides, each an intricate trove of 3-D aerial views, landmark floor plans, color photos and essential eating, shopping and entertainment info. With titles covering Paris, Prague, and London, these pocket-sized guides are like a Michelangelo fresco: deliriously rich in detail. -- People Magazine

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: DK Travel (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564588610
• ISBN-13: 978-1564588616
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,363 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #14 in	Books > Travel > Europe > Italy > Venice
  #96 in	Books > Travel > Guidebook Series > Eyewitness

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm a DK addict, April 28, 2002

By	John Andrew Deskins "Professional listener" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect travelling companion, April 28, 1999

By A Customer

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!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent job - you'll need very little to supplement this, November 3, 2002

By	Andrius Uzkalnis (Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.