Frommer’s 25 Great Drives in Northern Italy (Best Loved Driving Tours)
Frommer’s 25 Great Drives in Northern Italy (Best Loved Driving Tours)
Frommer’s 25 Great Drives In Northern ItalyEverything You Need to See the Best of Northern Italy by Car 25 distinctive itineraries with full-color maps, exact directions, and distances Popular areas and attractions, including Lake Como and its bustling lakefront promenades Hidden gems, from the natural hot springs in the Lake Garda area to the lush, peaceful Borromean Islands Tips on the best hotels and restaurants along each route More than 100 full-color photos and detailed route maps Scenic detours, recommended walks, and activities for childrenAnd more!5th Edition
List Price: $ 19.99
Price: $ 10.90
A Literary Companion To Venice: Including Seven Walking Tours
Venice has through the centuries attracted an extraordinary range of writers, drawn to it for inspiration, for consolation, or for the sheer pleasure of is unique setting. That so much of the city remains unchanged gives their words a powerful hold over our imaginations today. In this extravagant theater, writes Littlewood, we are as likely to chance upon the site of the murder of a Renaissance prince as the seduction of an eighteenth-century nun; the execution of a dissolute friar as the musings of a Victorian poet. All have their place in these pages, including the writings of Byron, Goethe, James, Proust, Lawrence, and Pound, among others.
Arranged in the form of seven detailed walks through Venice, this Literary Companion provide
List Price: $ 15.95
Price: $ 29.45
Very poor guide with very little useful information,
I am planning my first driving trip in Europe and frankly the thought of driving in a foreign country where I do not know the language is quite intimidating. Given Frommer’s reputation and the benefits I have obtained from using their other products, I purchased this book thinking it would be a great guide. After reviewing it a couple of days, I’ve determined it is pretty useless and I would never dream of using it to guide me around the strange roads of a foreign country.
First off, the print is extremely small. I had trouble reading it in good light with my glasses on. I could not imagine anyone being able to read it in a moving car to give directions to the driver. Secondly, the descriptions of the destinations are very, very brief. It is hard to imagine that a travel guide could make Italian attractions uninteresting and drab, but this book succeeded. Third, there are few useful photographs and the ones that were in the book seemed of poor quality or uninspiring — again, difficult to pull off when photographing Italy. Fourth, the guide offered no advice on where to park, get gas, lodge, or eat. The point of getting the book was to take the anxiety out of driving into Verona or Padua and not knowing where to park or get around once there. This guide offered zero help in that regard.
Lastly, the title of the book is a bit of a misnomer. Large sections of northern Italy are not covered. It focuses mainly on the lakes region, leaving vast areas of northern Italy ignored.
If you are looking for a great guide to assist with your trip, you are advised to keep looking. My copy is being returned for a refund.
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|Nice Drive Ideas,
I’ve gotten this series of driving books in the past for ideas on driving times and trhings to see. They offer good ideas with colorfull pictures. They don’t always include the drives that I want to make but usually there is a part of my drive.
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|no hassle,
The first delivery by UPS was to the wrong address. I was sent another copy
with no hassle. Excellent service. The book, itself, was very helpful in
completing my trip plans.
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|Wonderful walking guide……,
As a veteran of the stumbling around with four books in my backpack trying to make sense of the block where I’m standing approach to travel (I don’t do guided tours), I became a happier person the day I discovered someone had compiled the highpoints of Venice into one accessible walker’s guide. A LITERARY COMPANION TO VENICE by Ian Littlewood is a fine guide.
I’m a literary enthusiast and over the years I’ve managed to find Louisa May Alcott’s home in Concord, the stone ranch house Jack London built in Northern California, the supposed location of Robert Louis Stevenson’s grass hut in Hawaii, the house in Rye England where Henry James retired, Anne Frank’s attic in Amsterdam, the ancient and dour building in Geneva where Calvin framed his sermons, and Hemingway’s house in Key West (still inhabited by his cats’ cats’ cats).
Many authors have passed through Venice over the years, and some like Henry James and George Sand left written records of their visits. In LITERARY COMPANION, Littlewood guides the reader on seven tours of Venice, the seventh tour being “North Venice” — including the island where the fabled San Giorgio Maggiore and the Lagoon were painted in an impressionist sunset captured by Turner.
Littlewood provides a map for each of his tours, and at each step along the way he dicusses what you are seeing, who saw it before you, and what they had to say about it. For example, on the tour of the Piazza San Marco, the reader is directed to look “out across the Piazza” and “share the view with a fair number of pigeons..” He says Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Grey liked the view..”Stretched on his sofa, he reads some lines of Gautier and thinks back to his stay in Venice” ‘The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter around the tall honeycombed Campanile….’” Elizabeth Barrett Browning described the pigeons as “holy.”
A LITERARY COMPANION is not exhaustive, although it contains refererences to the visits and habitation of many illustrious persons including Dante who stayed in Venice when he had been expelled from Florence. If you want an in-depth story of Venice and it’s visitors over the past 1,000 years, I suggest you read John J. Norwich’s book VENICE. However, Littlewood’s COMPANION will be the book you take to Venice, it’s compact, light, and extremely useful.
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|Great Introduction to Venice,
A Literary Companion to Venice was the best introduction to Venice I could have read in preparation to my first visit there. The author shares stories of famous and unknown writers alike to weave a history of Venice by way of walking tours throughout the city. Great maps and illustrations accompany the seven wonderful walking tours detailed by the author. After reading this book I almost felt as if I’d been to this wonderful city and knew my way around.
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|Venetian walking tours for readers,
The English author adds a literary dimension to seven Venetian walking tours by incorporating quotations from novelists, poets, essayists, reporters, and other observers. The resulting book is livelier than you might expect.
Durant Imboden, Venice for Visitors, http://govenice.miningco.co
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