Rick Steves’ Italy 2011 with map
Rick Steves’ Italy 2011 with map
- From the beaches to the Alps, from fine art to fine pasta, Italy has it all. With this book, you’ll trace Italian culture from Rome’s Colosseum to Michelangelo’s David to the bustling elegance of Milan
- Experience the art-drenched cities of Venice and Florence, explore the ancient ruins of the Roman Forum, and learn how to avoid the lines at the most popular museums
- Discover the villages of Tuscany and Umbria and the lazy rhythms of the Cinque Terre
- Shop at local market stalls, sip a cappuccino at an outdoor caf’, and pick up a picknic lunch at an allimentari
- Relax and enjoy the life of Bella Italia!
You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling in Italy. From the beaches to the Alps, from fine art to fine pasta, Italy has it all. With this book, you’ll trace Italian culture from Rome’s Colosseum to Michelangelo’s David to the bustling elegance of Milan. Experience the art-drenched cities of Venice and Florence, explore the ancient ruins of the Roman Forum, and learn how to avoid the lines at the most popular museums. Discover the villages of Tuscany and Umbria and the lazy rhythms of the Cinque Terre. Shop at local market stalls, sip a cappuccino at an outdoor café, and pick up a picknic lunch at an allimentari. Relax and enjoy the life of Bella Italia! Rick’s candid, humorous advice will
List Price: $ 24.95
Price: $ 10.54
Italy (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
Italy offers an extraordinary kaleidoscope of regions and experiences for all visitors. Packed with photographs, illustrations and maps the Eyewitness Travel to Italy has mapped out all of the remarkable flavors of Italy. Use this guide to help you decide where to stay, eat, relax, and shop. Every page in the Eyewitness Travel to Italy has pinpointed the highlights of each fascinating region.
List Price: $ 30.00
Price: $ 16.47
Awesome Guide filled with Secrets!,
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!
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|Kindle version not complete!,
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.
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|Cyclists: take this book with you!,
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 trip was from Florence to Siena, then back up to San Gimignano, Volterra, back through Siena to Montepulciano, Pienza, and Montalcino. 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.
All in all, Rick is head and shoulders above most in his European guides. Highest recommendation.
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|Great presentation, excellent for planning and reference,
This is one of the best travel books I’ve read. Every page has well laid out and well labeled full color pictures to augment the text. Once you look at this it’s hard to go back to a dry, sterile book that’s all text with a handful of color pages in the middle. The information here is clear and easy to read. There is cross-referencing everywhere, for example a page that’s describing a major attraction will tell you where to go in the book to find hotels in that area. There are listings and descriptions for hotels and restaurants in each area, and general travel tips. The introduction to each area of Italy also has an overview of the history and architecture.
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|I resisted, but this guide won me over!,
I’ve been a long-time Lonely Planet fan, believing that text was fine. Why would I need pictures, since I was going to see the places in person anyway? I have since changed my mind completely!
We just returned from a 10-day trip to Italy (mostly Florence and Rome), and I have to say that I absolutely LOVED having this book along. When we went shopping for a guidebook, my husband picked this up and I went straight for the Lonely Planet. I resisted the Eyewitness guide, and we ended up splurging and just buying both. This ended up giving us an entire trip to compare them.
It’s true that it didn’t list a ton of places to see in each, but we didn’t really feel the book was too lacking. If we had known our itinerary when we went book shopping, we probably would have picked up Florence/Tuscany and Rome instead of the complete Italy, but this did help us choose our final destinations. One thing we really liked in the listings was the “Star Sight” marks. With the Lonely Planet books, the hardest part is trying to pick out which of the sights are really worth seeing and which are only so-so. In the Eyewitness book, not only did we have the Stars to guide us, but we also had the pictures to give us an idea if something was going to match our tastes or not.
By far, the best thing about this book was the information about the sights. I got so much more out of the trip by learning about the places we visited while we were there. From the food to the architecture to the history, it was so much more interesting. The clinching comparison between our two guides was the Roman Forum. The Eyewitness book had a sketch showing the layout of the forum with variou areas labelled with a brief description. A more detailed explanation of the various sites appeared on the following page. In contrast, our Lonely Planet tried despearately to explain the locations in prose (“to your left upon entering from this street…” and “across from that stands the remains of…”), and in the end, the only description they gave of each structure/area was its name! I really enjoyed having some background on what the places were and why they were significant.
The only downside of the book is in planning the logistics. There’s not a lot of information on how to get from city to city (or airport to city), and the admission prices to museums and attractions are surprisingly absent. However, with the blossoming of online travel sites, a lot of this information is easily available from other sources.
The city maps were a little confusing when crossing from one map to the next (I don’t think there’s any overlap), but I appreciated having the sights labelled even when they weren’t described in the listings. As we walked past a large church or government building, it was nice to be able to see what it was. The color coding of points of interest was good for walking, since we could tailor our route to pass by more interesting spots.
We didn’t use the hotel listings, since I researched our hotels online, but we did take advantage of a few restaurant suggestions. There aren’t a lot of budget listings, but the ones we tried were fantastic! Off the beaten path, we never would have found them otherwise, and we appreciated having budget sit-down options. The budget listings in our other guide tended to list lunch spots and self-service eateries.
In general, I really think this book helped “make” our trip. The whole time, it was like having a guide with us, pointing things out and explaining what was going on.
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|Good Starter,
I found this book useful for helping me target in on the areas I’d be most interested in visiting. Perusing the overview maps and many little photos of the attractions quickly gives you an idea what to expect in each region. It’s a great starting point for planning your vacation to Italy. It has all the contact info you need to further track down or get specific information on hotels/attractions.
Once you look thru the book and have an idea on the specific regions you want to visit I’d suggest getting a book just targeted in on that region as you’ll get more detailed information on the hotels/restaurants/attractions in that area that way. This book as to not be thousands of pages just briefly describes attractions and as for hotels/restaurants it mostly just gives you a star rating. If you want to do leg work yourself though it may be all you need as it does provide web links and phone numbers where you can get more details on each.
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