Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #777 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 926 pages

Synopsis
"Lonely Planet".

Customer Reviews

Good - but not exceptional
This is a good guide book, as all the guide books in the series, but I did expect a bit more from it. I travelled around Italy together with my husband the summer of 2005, and we used this guide book a lot. But it is a guide book, nothing more. There are quite a bit of things that have changed since the book was last edited, but this is expected. We are planning to send the findings we did to the editor, so that it can be added or changed in the next edition, perhaps.
We felt that the book focused too much on churches, castles etc, and a lot of really interesting things were missed - like the local food markets, which we love to visit. There wasn't much of "different" or "special" recommendations, it was just focusing on the "What to see if you are a tourist", while what you remember are the things "sticking out". You can only look at so many churches during three weeks...
You could also find that the author(s) recommended one area in the top part of a column, but further down it was the other way around. It was obvious that the text was not written by one person only, but by several, and then compiled into one lump of text. I was aware that several people helped writing the book, and for a guide book I believe that is good, but the texts should be kept separate. Now it became very obvious at times that two people with different opinion had written parts of one text.
These guidebooks do not at all talk about how life is for the locals, if there are any "local speciallities" in regards to food and whine etc. Considering Italy is one of the best food countries in the world, I think this is a pity!

Funny is that we actually managed to end up at one of the hotels that the book recommended, although we didn't plan for it. I didn't realise we were at the recommended place until the day after we checked in. Some parts I might want to read more carefylly next time... It was an excellent little place, though, and we really enjoyed it!

So, in short: Get this guide book, but don't let it be your only guide, make sure you stop by the local touristinfo and pick up some info as well! And have fun in Italy!

Dissapointing from Lonely Planet
I have bought Lonely Planet books many times before and found them really good, but this book was not very helpful. There is two much information on the cities and hardly anything about the beach areas or areas out of the cities. When I am on holiday I would rather have fun than read 35 pages about monks in the 13th century.

FAB!!!
I really enjoyed this book and found it very helpfull and with great tips and info to my TRIP to Italy/