Rick Steves' Italy 2004

Rating:
Summary: Helpful
Review: Very helpful. Rick gives you the inside scoop. No one guide book can do it all but this is the first one to buy.

Rating:
Summary: Italy and Rick Steeves--a WINNING combination!
Review: Want to find the best places to go in Italy? Let Rick Steeves show you where they are! He led me to a wonderful restaurant called Gallo Nero in the ancient city Siena, taught me the value of the menu turistica in Venice, and ensured that I will return to Italy someday!

Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: We bought this book based on the recommendations we read here. It is corny and we weren't so sure before we left and picked up several other tour guides. Throughout our trip this was the hands down favorite and saved us tons of time by being very concise and specific about how to miraculously avoid long lines for every site we went to. By the end of our trip it's about the only thing we used. Our only problem was everytime we went to a resaurant he recommended, there was a HUGE crowd of americans with his book sitting on the table.

Rating:
Summary: Use it as a supplement
Review: We just returned from 10 days in Tuscany. I bought this book and also Rick Steeves Florence and Tuscany book. While the Florence Tuscany book has more specific information than the general Italy book I found myself looking to other guides for more. The maps are hard to read because they are hand drawn and not very detailed. We were there to explore the wine regions and there just wasn't much information about it. I also agree with the person who commented about Pisa. We went against Steves' advise to skip it and found the traffic to be no problem. The one recommendation that turned out to be the highlight of our trip was Lucca. His suggestion to rent bikes and bike the ramparts was great! For everything else, fortunatley, our villa we had a Frommer's Italy 2003 guide. It turned out to be a much better resource for what we were looking for.

Rating:
Summary: Back from Italy
Review: We recently returned from Italy (Milan, Venice and Verano). Rick's book was great for hotels suggestions in the 2-3 star category. His information on transportation to/from airports and train stations was 100% accurate. He did recommend using a travel agency for train tickets---instead we went to the train station and using our limited Italian and some crib notes, we did great. Make sure you re-comfirm your hotel and bring the email with you.
His maps are terrible!. Sorry, Rick.

Rating:
Summary: extremely helpful guide
Review: we spent over 3 weeks in Italy - starting from South to North. i brought both the Lonely Planet and Rick Steves books and found Steves' book the most helpful. the best parts were advice on how to avoid waiting in long lines (ie Coliseum) and restaurants recommendations. hotels were accurately depicted and very close to major sites. the only shortcoming was that there was no warning about exchanging money at the train stations. apparently, some places charge up to 18% commission so beware and read all the fine print.

Rating:
Summary: Save time and energy while visiting Italy
Review: We traveled to Italy with this book as well as several others. We found that this book was the one we kept coming back to for insightful and accurate information on sights and highlights. We were amazed to see so many other people carrying this book with them.

Rating:
Summary: Take this with you!
Review: We've just returned from Italy and Rick Steves' Italy 2000 was the travel book we could not have done without. Rick does a great job of highlighting the sites as well as providing useful information about the best times of day to visit, how to make reservations for the busiest sites, and easy to understand maps. The book's size also makes it easy to carry with you as you travel during the day.

Rating:
Summary: rick steves travel guide
Review: Well. I was a gullible sucker for traveling guides. This book isnt worth much of your money. Rick implied that Eurail "can be dizzying to your IQ..." so is his style of speaking and marketing his products. It is a grave sin for someone who could write a book truthfully and straightforward these days. BLAME ON Morality restrictions and limitations for the 21st century of human kind which enhance the opportunity to explore wealth to spectrums. I could not get a straight answer/knowledge of simple instructions for the Eurail passes. Round trip price or one way? how does it work? - in simple terms not his dizzying terms? And so much for the marketing of his travel knowledge and experience and products and profit sharing of his affiliations in Italy,France, and so on. Well if you want Rick Steve or other traveling guides to be rich because of your naivety or limited knowledge of Europe, continue to buy these books. Find a good travel agent and take your chance for a first time and rely on your intuition. It is much better than these limited-morality morons.

Rating:
Summary: You will need no other book on Traveling in Italy!
Review: Whether its what hotel to rest up in or what over seen site to avoid, Rick Steve's Italy 1999 is an excellent resource. It is truly an insider's guide, not to mention enjoyable reading material on those long train rides from Milan to Napoli. Do not dare get another book on Italy, trust me.