Rating: 
Summary: THE book for independent travelers
Review: I used this book (the 1998 version) to plan a 10-day trip for my family in Italy. Every hotel, restaurant and site was right on! If you want to experience Italy as an Italian (almost) this is the book for you. Rick tells you where to stay in the big cities so that you feel like you are part of the neighborhood. The small towns he recommends help you discover a new old world. I used several of his books during 3 years of living in Europe and he never missed. This was the only guidebook I took with me and never lacked for information.
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Summary: The Most Recent Info Available
Review: I was looking for a guide book to help with an upcoming trip to one of the lesser known places to see in Italy. Paestum. Rick Steves' book was the only one that had a comprehensive guide to the city and ruins of Paestum. All the other Italy tour guide books only slightly mentioned it and how to get there. Steves' has a great layout of the ruins and a guide to the museum and places around Paestum to visit. This book is also a great guide for people coming to Italy for an extended period of time. The book has information for the big places to visit (Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan) as well as the lesser known places to visit (Paestum, Puglia, Assisi, and Cortona). A must for the traveller. Not much of a difference with the 2002 book. It mostly has updated phone numbers and updated prices. If you have the 2002 book and don't have the money you really don't need this one, but if you are crazy about Italy or are looking for a book on travelling around Italy this is the best book out there.
Rating: 
Summary: You're going to LOVE ITALY!
Review: I've been to Italy several times.....Rome, Venice, Florence, Bologna, Milan, some of the hill towns, etc. Here are my reviews of the best guides to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!
Rick Steves' books are not recommended. They may be an interesting read but their helpfulness is very poor. They don't do well on updates, transportation details, or anything but the first-time-tourist routine and even that is somewhat superficial on anything but the mega-major sites.
Frommer's
These are time tested guides that pride themselves on being updated annually. Although I think the guides below provide information that is in more depth or more concise (depending on what the guide is known for), if your main concern is that the guide has very little old or outdated information, then this would be a good guide for you.
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.
Blue Guides
Without doubt, the best of the walks guides.... the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.
MapGuide
MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the public transportation system. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the center of the city.
Time Out
The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!
Let's Go
Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what:
Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)
Michelin
Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.
Fodor's
Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what:
The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide
Rating:
Summary: Great guidebook
Review: I've used Rick Steve's Italy guidebooks for both trips I've taken to Italy - one for 2 months in 1998, and one for 10 days in 2001. His hotels have always been wonderful, the restaurants he recommends are superb, and there are great ideas for "Back Door" (off the beaten path) opportunities and experiences.The only thing that could make the guide better is a little more detail on museums and historic sites (though his Mona Winks book covers that in detail.)
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Summary: Va Bene! Creme of the Crop!
Review: Like so many other folks, my wife and I love to travel. And we run into the same problem as most travelers in that too soon you have seen too many museums and too many attractions. On the back of his book on Italy Steves says it is his job to "sift through the mountains of time-sapping alternatives and present you with only the only the best," the creme of the crop. Having just returned from Italy I offer the following example as an assessment of Steves' book. When visiting Pompeii, Steves recommends visiting just ten sites of the some 90 which are listed on the local site map. These include the Forum, the House of Vetti, the Brothel, and the Amphitheater. Since I happen to love ancient history, we saw all of these sites and many more. But to be fair, most folks would prefer to see only the creme of the crop and in my opinion, they would not have thought of my dusty shoes as I did at the end of the day. Steves had picked the creme of the crop. There is one matter that I would like to add to what Steves wrote in his book. Though he mentions that there are pickpockets in Italy, I think he needs to mention how to deal with _most_ of them. Most of these folks are gypsies or panhandlers. They approach you with a bouquet of roses or some such ploy and try to get you to buy. To these one need only be firm in saying no. More stealthier is the woman who distracts you with a baby while her young children flank you to snag whatever appears out of your pockets. To avoid this, just don't get flanked. Retreat. Going to Italy? The odds are you'll have more of a bon voyage if you follow the advice of Rick Steves.
Rating:
Summary: doesn't steer you wrong
Review: On our honeymoon, everyplace we stayed or ate using this book was first rate.
Rating:
Summary: Particular segment of the market
Review: Potential purchasers should be aware that Rick Steve's books are aimed at a particular segment of segment of the tourist market, that is, those people who want clear and practical advice about how to get about Italy as quickly and cheaply as possible, ticking off the "essential" bits; but don't care very much about what they eat, where they eat, where they sleep or why things are the way they are. Last of all they want to spend their time with other tourists who think the same way. If this discription does not fit you, then there may be other books you might consider such as the Blue Guides or HV Morton.
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Summary: Great Guide
Review: Rick did a great job for this guide, the hotel and hostel information was right on track and largely the site seeing guide was valuable. I would have to say, that In Rome, the Academia was less interesting than the science museum and Rick's three star sights weren't always that great. The worst thing about the book were the awful maps included. They are not to scale and lack detail, you will definitely want another guidebook to accommodate for this shortcoming. What made up for this, was Rick's recommendation for the Cinque Terra. It was just fabulous, I highly urge you to add that to your itinerary. You wont be sorry.
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Summary: The Down and Dirty of Traveling
Review: Rick Steve's guide books are unbeatable. After living in Europe for 3 years and using Fodor's books for the first year and a half, traveling became much easier and enjoyable, when I stumbled on Rick Steves' practical no nonsense guides to European countries. We used this guide to see Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, and Capri and it did not steer us astray. The opinionated advice was almost always spot on and the practical advice of traveling on the cheap allowed us to save up enough money to spend on more enjoyable things then ritzy hotels, tourists trap spots, and gourmet overpriced dinners. Rick Steves' guides are definitely not all-inclusive so if you want a complete guide to the entire country of Italy you may have to augment with another guide book, but if you want the highlights of the country told from a practical seasoned traveler perspective, this is your guide book. We have done a lot of traveling and used numerous guide books and there isn't a one out there that matches up to the quality of Rick Steves' series. It's like having your own personal unobtrusive guide, a behind the scenes ex pat that has been there and done that. If you are going to Italy, by all means, take Rick Steves along...a guide that fits in your back pocket.
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Summary: Great advice in here
Review: Rick Steves has a way of making a tourist feel so comfortable. Everything he says has turned out to be true. The hand-drawn maps are charming, but might not be adequate for some nervous travelers. I love how he lists the travel times between the major cities -- really helps you change course quickly when on the road! I haven't stayed at his recommended hotels but next time I intend to -- he lists some very good deals in here. I used with the D&K pictoral guide to Italy and the 2 of them complemented each other perfectly.
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