What are the Best Travel Guidebooks for Italian Cities & Towns?
Which Guidebook is Better? Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, DK Eyewitness or Frommer?
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| 1914 Ms. Mason began in Liguria and visited Portofino: 'the quaintest fishing village under the sky'.Cinque Terre was not yet famous. |
Let's start off on the right foot: there are no best travel guidebooks. All have strengths and weaknesses, and all travelers have different approaches and needs. We have recently finished our independent review of almost all the popular Italy travel guidebooks. We give you our recommendation along with enough description help you decide if it fits your needs.
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BEST FOR A PANDEMIC?
We highly recommend the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides. The rich illustrations and deeper explanations provide the best possible distant enjoyment.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Italy
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Florence & Tuscany
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Rome
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Venice and the Veneto
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We cover most every guide you might want in three articles:
⬥Guidebooks for Italian Cities & Towns (This Article)
⬩Rome ⬩Florence ⬩Venice ⬩Cinque Terre ⬩Naples
⬥Guidebooks for Italy (click)
⬩All of Italy ⬩Best of Italy ⬩Southern Italy
+ Italy Guidebook Series - The Publishers Reviewed
⬩Rick Steves ⬩Lonely Planet ⬩Rough Guides
⬩DK Eyewitness ⬩Fodor's ⬩Frommer
⬥Guidebooks for Italian Regions (click)
⬩Amalfi Coast ⬩Cinque Terre ⬩Italian Lakes ⬩Liguria, ⬩Puglia ⬩Sardinia ⬩Sicily ⬩Tuscany
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▸Guidebooks in each category are in order of preference.▸All books have Paperback and Kindle editions.
▸ On Amazon UK the Kindle editions may be in the Kindle store.
▸See Who Are The Reviewers below to read about the criteria of the reviewers.
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About our Links. We are retired and we don't write for money, however, links to products and services we recommend often are Affiliate links where we receive a small commission from a purchase. Clicking on them doesn't affect the price offered. As Amazon Associates we may earn such a commission on qualifying purchases via Amazon links. See also About Us & Disclosures below and in the sidebar.
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⬥Florence - The Best Guidebooks
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▸Guidebooks in each category are in order of preference.▸All books have Paperback and Kindle editions.▸ On Amazon UK the Kindle editions may be in the Kindle store.
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702 pages 18th Edition=Dec. 2019 Next edition Dec., 2021.
Besides full Florence coverage with itineraries, it includes Siena, Lucca, Pisa, and a bunch of hill towns. Good maps and extra consideration like Florence with kids and suggested itineraries. Good info on opening hours, fees, etc. This book has more coverage of the subject than the full Rick Steves Italy Guidebook - useful for a stay of four days or more.
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| Begun by bicyclists, Touring Club Italiano has produced outstanding guides and maps since 1895. Now with 300,000 members. |
Pocket Florence Rick Steves +(Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
4th Edition=July 2020 200 pages 7 ounces Next edition July, 2022
Largely the same info as in the full Italy Rick Steves Guidebook. The reduced size makes it good for a 2 or 3 day Florence visit.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Florence & Tuscany ++(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
May 2021 256 pages 13 ounces
Visually very appealing, but the total amount of information is less. This book uses DK's new design which seeks more utility in the internet age and weighs less than previous versions (by not using coated paper). The Amazon reviews are conglomerated with the older edition so use date-sorted reviews when judging.
☛Streetwise Florence Map +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
We would still be lost if not for Michelin's laminated maps.
☛Brunelleschi's Dome +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Florence's Duomo is stunning; so was its creation. Ross King's bestselling historic novel takes you back to 1418 to relive the building's development and understand this engineering marvel.
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⬥Naples - The Best Guidebooks
Snapshot: Naples & the Amalfi Coast Rick Steves+(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
160 pages 7 ounces Jan. 2020 Next edition: Fall 2022.
The Snapshot edition is an excerpt from the Italy Rick Steves Guidebook. Covers Naples and the Amalfi Coast, including Pompeii, Vesuvius, Positano, and the town of Amalfi.
Fodor's The Amalfi Coast, Capri & Naples +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Sept. 2019 336 pages Full Color
This guide suits this area where tourism is on a more luxurious plane. It covers a large variety of activities, as well as restaurant life - an essential part of Naples and Amalfi's attraction.
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⬥Rome - The Best Guidebooks
Rome 2020 Rick Steves +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)628 pages 10 ounces Oct. 2019 Next edition Jan. 2021 !
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| From 1950, reviews of Cecil's work said he had thin plots & cardboard characters. |
Pocket Rome Rick Steves +(Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
2020 8 ounces 209 pages June, 2020 Next edition Fall 2022.
Largely the same info as in the full Italy Rick Steves Guidebook. The reduced size makes it good for a 2 or 3 day Rome visit.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Rome 2021 ++(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK) May 2021 352 pages 19 ounces.
Visually very appealing with good photos, detailed maps, cut-away building illustrations, and interesting tangential info, but the total amount of practical information is less. Consider this as a companion 2nd guide or for pre-trip inspiration. This book uses DK's new design
☛Streetwise Rome Map +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Laminated, fold-able, pocket-sized, Michelin, readable.
☛A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome Angela 352 pages +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Loved this book. The author, the Italian TV presenter Alberto Angela, made the city come alive and you won't believe the extent to which Romans were not like us. Tenements and sex and gods and cooking and laundry urine and slaves - just to start.
☛Streetwise Rome Map +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Laminated, fold-able, pocket-sized, Michelin, readable.
☛A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome Angela 352 pages +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Loved this book. The author, the Italian TV presenter Alberto Angela, made the city come alive and you won't believe the extent to which Romans were not like us. Tenements and sex and gods and cooking and laundry urine and slaves - just to start.
☛Four Seasons in Rome Anthony Doerr 242 pages +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
A Pulitzer-prize winning novelist is seduced by Rome and Italy and writes about it. How can you not read it? It will change your trip - say the reviewers.
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⬥Venice - The Best GuidebooksNov. 2019 524 pages 14 ounces Next edition Nov. 2021
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| Venice & Vassar meet and confront tourism existentially - even in 1956. McCarthy - known for 'The Group' also wrote 'The Stones of Florence'. |
Pocket Venice Rick Steves +(Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
July, 2020 224 pages 9 ounces Next edition July, 2022.
Largely the same info as in the full Italy Rick Steves Guidebook. The reduced size makes it good for a 2 or 3 day Venice visit.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Venice and the Veneto
+(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK) 2020 Edition 220 pages 21 ounces
This colorful guide makes Venice into a delicious treat waiting for you. The beautiful maps, the clever building cut-aways, the interesting asides combine to charge your batteries. While it's not the best walk-around book, do consider using two guides, especially if you're driving around the Veneto region.
☛Streetwise Venice Map +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Excellent laminated & fold-able map. However, you should get lost in Venice anyhow (temporarily), it's traditional.
+(Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Kindle UK)
July, 2020 183 pages Next edition Fall, 2022.
This edition contains contains the same info as in the RS Italy guidebook with the addition of a good Cinque Terre map. We've written a lot on the Cinque Terre and this is the guide we'd want - hands down the best Cinque Terre guidebook available.
☛Don't miss our Cinque Terre articles:
Every Answer You Need for Your Cinque Terre Trip
Cinque Terre - 16 Tips for Avoiding the Crowds
A Guide to the Local Food of La Spezia & Cinque Terre
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☛Streetwise Venice Map +(Amazon US) +(Amazon UK)
Excellent laminated & fold-able map. However, you should get lost in Venice anyhow (temporarily), it's traditional.
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⬥Cinque Terre - The Best Guidebook
Pocket Cinque Terre Rick Steves 2020+(Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Kindle UK)
July, 2020 183 pages Next edition Fall, 2022.
This edition contains contains the same info as in the RS Italy guidebook with the addition of a good Cinque Terre map. We've written a lot on the Cinque Terre and this is the guide we'd want - hands down the best Cinque Terre guidebook available.
☛Don't miss our Cinque Terre articles:
Every Answer You Need for Your Cinque Terre Trip
Cinque Terre - 16 Tips for Avoiding the Crowds
A Guide to the Local Food of La Spezia & Cinque Terre
Amazon Products Mike & Martha Recommend - Article Continues Below.
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Guidebook Ideas & Tips
Make Your Own. As part of trip planning, we create organized supplemental material on towns, buildings, restaurants, geographical features, etc. from the internet or books before we leave home. If you have particular interests, a travel guide won't go into enough detail - so bring more. We often print out or download Wikipedia articles, local blog articles or good tourist office publications. For easy access, create a document on smartphone or computer with links to websites by subject or location. It will save a lot of time in your hotel room.Kindle Limitations. Kindle users can be inconvenienced while touring because screens can be hard to see in bright sun, and map details can be too small. Also, devices are hard to share which can make you the de facto guide. Consider getting a pocket guide in paperback to carry with you in Rome or Cinque Terre or wherever, as well as a large Kindle Italy guide for the full coverage with less weight.
Library. Don't forget your local library. Many have a good section of travel guidebooks so you can figure out which guidebook is for you. They also are good for inspiring ideas beyond the obvious and adding information your chosen guidebook doesn't cover.
Lose Weight. With bigger guides we isolate the sections we need and slice the binding. We put duct tape on the binding of each of the newly created sections so they don't fall apart. Now you can leave some of the book at home and discard no-longer-needed sections during your trip.
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Who Are The Reviewers?
Caroline Mason was an avid Quaker pacifist
who opposed WWI. An avid writer she
published at least 30 titles - this 1909.
What kind of travelers reviewed these guides? We usually do self-guided trips with a relaxed schedule, by train to large cities and typically by car otherwise. We want a guide with a practical, well-organized approach without superficial writing. Beyond basic facts, we want cultural insight, helpful advice, historical background, and a large selection of sights both great and small - with particulars about hours and prices.
We don't look for guidebook hotel and restaurant recommendations because they give just a limited number of popular places, making it hard to avoid the beaten path. The books can't match online sources where you can learn about virtually all the choices along with recent feedback. Fortunately, Italy now has lots of free wifi, and almost all accommodations will have quite good wifi service.
Finally, we greatly value comprehensive coverage in a guidebook since the internet makes it easier to vary from a planned itinerary to respond to weather, crowds, or new information. We change plans during almost every trip as we discover new aspects of an area, and hopefully your guide books will help you take advantage of the serendipity that makes travel so enjoyable.
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Caroline Mason was an avid Quaker pacifist
who opposed WWI. An avid writer she
published at least 30 titles - this 1909.
|
We don't look for guidebook hotel and restaurant recommendations because they give just a limited number of popular places, making it hard to avoid the beaten path. The books can't match online sources where you can learn about virtually all the choices along with recent feedback. Fortunately, Italy now has lots of free wifi, and almost all accommodations will have quite good wifi service.
Finally, we greatly value comprehensive coverage in a guidebook since the internet makes it easier to vary from a planned itinerary to respond to weather, crowds, or new information. We change plans during almost every trip as we discover new aspects of an area, and hopefully your guide books will help you take advantage of the serendipity that makes travel so enjoyable.
For accommodation, we typically rely on close reading of the verified hotel and apartment reviews on Booking.com which has the most useful map and search options in our opinion. Our 2nd choice is AirBnB but it's more expensive and the same apartments often appear on both services. For hotels, we avoid TripAdvisor and Online Travel Agencies (Travelocity, etc.) due to unverified reviews, higher prices at times, and lack of added value. We use Google Street View to see what the building, the neighborhood or the traffic are really like if we have any doubts.
For restaurants, we study up on the area's specialties and then become skeptical readers of TripAdvisor reviews (Yelp is not used much in Italy). TripAdvisor reviews in English are skewed to the positive in Italy by happy travelers who are new to real Italian food - good for them, but we want more knowledgeable opinions. We look for reviewers who've written a good number of intelligent reviews with specifics we can evaluate - hopefully an Italian or Italophile. Also, if a restaurant is listed in the Slow Food guide (Osterie & Locande d’Italia), or display the Slow Food snail logo, they automatically are given serious consideration.
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| Fall 2017: our 56th Italy trip. |
About Us
We are Mike and Martha from Boston and we have visited Italy over 50 times in the past 30 years. We are retired photo editors and we've had an apartment eleven miles by crow or drone from Cinque Terre for over 25 years. We know Italy well and we keep current by reading the local news and travelers' forums and keeping up with travel websites. We also maintain the web's only archive of Cinque Terre ferry schedules to help people off-season. We hope our information will help you have a great trip. When planning, remember there are no right choices, just different pleasures.
Buon Viaggio.
Disclosure
We receive no money or free stuff for writing our articles or opinions. Your encouragement and trust mean more to us than any money. Some of the links here are Affiliate links where we receive a small commission from a purchase. Clicking on them doesn't affect the price offered. As Amazon Associates we may earn such a commission on qualifying purchases via Amazon links.
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Accommodation in Italy? We often use Booking.com because we like the verified reviews, good search filters, good maps, and clear cancellation policies. Link: Booking.com
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Italian Travel Questions? How to get from Florence to Venice? What to do in Mantova? Agriturismo in Umbria? We recommend using the search function on Link: Martha's Italy
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Renting a car in Italy? You really, really need to read our popular article:
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Ligurian Proverb: Ogni promessa e un debito. (Every promise is a debt.)
Updated Jan. 2021. We list the latest editions at each update but time passes - best to doublecheck.
Copyright 2019. 2020, 2021. Amendola Media LLC. Where is the Giovanni Amendola of our era?
Copyright 2019. 2020, 2021. Amendola Media LLC. Where is the Giovanni Amendola of our era?
