Rough Guide to Italy (Italy (Rough Guides))

Rating:
Summary: Not a recommended guide for first-time visitors to Italy?
Review: I just came back from a 2 week trip to Italy, my first time going there. I have used guides such as LonelyPlanet and Let's Go before, but I selected RoughGuide for this trip because I have heard a lot of good things about the series and as it was one of the most recently published guides for Italy, I was hoping it will have the most updated information.

First of all, the good things about the guide:
1. It does contain a lot of practical information about big and small cities in Italy, and it was immensely useful during my trip.
2. A lot of historical and insightful details for museums and art galleries that went beyond the basics, that I found very useful

However, the good is not enough to overcome the shortcomings of the guide, and that is why I think there must be a better guide for Italy than this and I encourage travelers to seek them out. Some of the things in the guide that really bothered me included:

1. Listing recommended bars and cafes without marking them on the provided map. Without a street index for any map, I was unable to find the places they recommended unless I spend 20 minutes looking at every single street name on the page. As streets in places like Rome, Florence and Venice are very small, this was a very difficult task. I sometimes came to the conclusion that the street for the bar listing was not even in the map provided. Contact information for bars and cafes were not provided, so it was not even possible to call them to ask for directions.

2. No layout plan/map for large museums and galleries. When I came to places like the Vatican, the Roman Forums and the Uffizi, I found it difficult to locate important "sights" with only word directions (i.e. on the right of the second altar...... or on the left side of that first pile of rubble.....) This is especially a problem when I sometimes found myself coming in from a different entrance than the one the writers used. It would have been a lot simpler if they included a map of the museum itself. This was especially difficult in the Uffizi in Florence. They would describe a painting as being in room 6, but room numbers are not displayed for every room in the Uffizi. The rooms are also not clearly shaped and defined, and I did not even realize I had crossed four rooms until I looked at my friend's guide to see I was no longer in room 3, but in room 7.

3. Not really a guide for roughing it. For Siena, the category of inexpensive dining means a meal for less than Euro 20. This is actually quite expensive for a backpacker on a budget.

4. Not very thorough directions. In Siena, information is given for how to get to the train station from the city centre, but no information is given for getting back to the train station (the bus drop off and pick off points are in different parts of the city). To get from Naples to Pompeii, they list taking the train to Torre Annuziata and then switching to another line, but you save yourself a lot of trouble if you just take train to Sorrento.

5. Lack of low budget accommodation listings. There are a lot of listings for hotels, but there is hardly enough listings of hostels. Even when there are listings, the comments they offer are not very helpful to help me decide whether it is a hostel that is worth using.

All in all, this guide did help me a lot. At the same time, I am quite certain I would have been able to find the same help in another guide to Italy, that would have offered better directions and descriptions of famous sights. Perhaps this is a good guide if you are already quite familiar with Italy, because it does offer information for smaller towns and out of the way places. However, for a first time backpacker to the country who was interested in seeing the big and medium-sized sights, I found it lacking a lot of information that would have been helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Not a recommended guide for first-time visitors to Italy¿
Review: I just came back from a 2 week trip to Italy, my first time going there. I have used guides such as LonelyPlanet and Let's Go before, but I selected RoughGuide for this trip because I have heard a lot of good things about the series and as it was one of the most recently published guides for Italy, I was hoping it will have the most updated information.

First of all, the good things about the guide:
1. It does contain a lot of practical information about big and small cities in Italy, and it was immensely useful during my trip.
2. A lot of historical and insightful details for museums and art galleries that went beyond the basics, that I found very useful

However, the good is not enough to overcome the shortcomings of the guide, and that is why I think there must be a better guide for Italy than this and I encourage travelers to seek them out. Some of the things in the guide that really bothered me included:

1. Listing recommended bars and cafes without marking them on the provided map. Without a street index for any map, I was unable to find the places they recommended unless I spend 20 minutes looking at every single street name on the page. As streets in places like Rome, Florence and Venice are very small, this was a very difficult task. I sometimes came to the conclusion that the street for the bar listing was not even in the map provided. Contact information for bars and cafes were not provided, so it was not even possible to call them to ask for directions.

2. No layout plan/map for large museums and galleries. When I came to places like the Vatican, the Roman Forums and the Uffizi, I found it difficult to locate important "sights" with only word directions (i.e. on the right of the second altar...... or on the left side of that first pile of rubble.....) This is especially a problem when I sometimes found myself coming in from a different entrance than the one the writers used. It would have been a lot simpler if they included a map of the museum itself. This was especially difficult in the Uffizi in Florence. They would describe a painting as being in room 6, but room numbers are not displayed for every room in the Uffizi. The rooms are also not clearly shaped and defined, and I did not even realize I had crossed four rooms until I looked at my friend's guide to see I was no longer in room 3, but in room 7.

3. Not really a guide for roughing it. For Siena, the category of inexpensive dining means a meal for less than Euro 20. This is actually quite expensive for a backpacker on a budget.

4. Not very thorough directions. In Siena, information is given for how to get to the train station from the city centre, but no information is given for getting back to the train station (the bus drop off and pick off points are in different parts of the city). To get from Naples to Pompeii, they list taking the train to Torre Annuziata and then switching to another line, but you save yourself a lot of trouble if you just take train to Sorrento.

5. Lack of low budget accommodation listings. There are a lot of listings for hotels, but there is hardly enough listings of hostels. Even when there are listings, the comments they offer are not very helpful to help me decide whether it is a hostel that is worth using.

All in all, this guide did help me a lot. At the same time, I am quite certain I would have been able to find the same help in another guide to Italy, that would have offered better directions and descriptions of famous sights. Perhaps this is a good guide if you are already quite familiar with Italy, because it does offer information for smaller towns and out of the way places. However, for a first time backpacker to the country who was interested in seeing the big and medium-sized sights, I found it lacking a lot of information that would have been helpful.

Rating:
Summary: To be fair...
Review: I'd like to offer another review from just the one out here - although I have not used Rough Guide to Italy, I just got back from Switzerland where I couldn't have survived with out my Rough Guide!

It was comprehensive (the smallest of towns we went through had information in the guide), provided detailed city maps (which we could do our own tours), and offered good info on hotels and meals. Granted we are not student backpackers and looked for a guide that was fit to our needs - that is what Rough Guide to Switzerland did for us and will be doing for us through Italy!

Rating:
Summary: Very helpful for trip to Italy team cut combine 2nd book
Review: What I like best about the Rough Guides is that they give critical reviews. They will point out the tourist traps and will give negative reviews. I find that Frommer's and Fodor's rarely point out the negatives to a particular hotel or site. The rough guide is very critical and is a great balance to these other guides. I would balance your trip to Italy with a Fodors (or Frommers) book because the maps and illustrations are often better and there are more higher-end hotels listed.
This book will help you decide where is best to spend your vacation in Italy. There are clear critical descriptions of all the regions and great general info on getting around in Italy.

If you aren't interested in "roughing" it and staying in lower priced hotels. The guides are still very useful in rating attractions, and areas in which to stay... but you will need another book to look at more moderate and luxury hotels.

I would definitely read this book before going to Italy.

Rating:
Summary: Willing to pay for this book?
Review: What's rough about this guide book? Oh, the information! I don't know who this book is written for, because as a regular backpacker, I find it completely useless. Two major problems are the lack of sufficient information about hostels (there's plenty of hotels listed, though), and there's no information considering the costs of travelling around Italy.

Unless you are travelling with a suitcase full of money, don't buy this one.

Oh: I tried to rate this book as "-", but it wasn't possible. One star given is too much.