Blue Guide Venice (Seventh Edition)

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide, but it only meets certain travel needs..
Review:

If you are looking for a guide that will help you "narrow down" the choices of sights to see in Venice, this one is not for you. If you are looking for extensive lists and reviews of hotels, again this is not for you. Finally, if you're looking for detailed restauraunt information, you won't find it here. Basically, this guide is not a planning guide. I have used the Internet for most of my planning (e-mail me if you need some help finding some great sites [e-mail]).

What this guide does have to offer is an amazing amount of cultural, historic, and artistic information in a very packable sized guide. This will be the guide to read when you are doing your own tours of Venice. It will tell you far more than any tour guide would.

This guide also has map pages included. At first they are difficult to read and understand. But once you get the hang of them, you will love them. They are very detailed, and who wants to be seen walking around a city with a two foot map in their face??

The blue guide also gets you oriented to the city. Even if you don't use the Blue Guide's walks, they will show you which attractions are grouped together and will help you plan your routes (this is the one sense in which this guide works for planning). I haven't left yet,and my guide looks worn!

In conclusion, I am putting together my own itinerary that will contain details like restaurant and hotel addresses. And then this will be the only guidebook that I take with me to Venice. And I am looking forward to reading it and absorbing as much of the city as possible! If you are remotely interested in history and art and more, you will not regret purchasing this guide. I have used many guidebooks for trips, and the Blue Guides are the most informative and educated.

Rating:
Summary: Art, Architecture and History - it's all here!
Review:

If you are looking for a guide that will help you "narrow down" the choices of sights to see in Venice, this one is not for you. If you are looking for extensive lists and reviews of hotels, again this is not for you. Finally, if you're looking for detailed restauraunt information, you won't find it here. Basically, this guide is not a planning guide. I have used the Internet for most of my planning (e-mail me if you need some help finding some great sites [e-mail]).

What this guide does have to offer is an amazing amount of cultural, historic, and artistic information in a very packable sized guide. This will be the guide to read when you are doing your own tours of Venice. It will tell you far more than any tour guide would.

This guide also has map pages included. At first they are difficult to read and understand. But once you get the hang of them, you will love them. They are very detailed, and who wants to be seen walking around a city with a two foot map in their face??

The blue guide also gets you oriented to the city. Even if you don't use the Blue Guide's walks, they will show you which attractions are grouped together and will help you plan your routes (this is the one sense in which this guide works for planning). I haven't left yet,and my guide looks worn!

In conclusion, I am putting together my own itinerary that will contain details like restaurant and hotel addresses. And then this will be the only guidebook that I take with me to Venice. And I am looking forward to reading it and absorbing as much of the city as possible! If you are remotely interested in history and art and more, you will not regret purchasing this guide. I have used many guidebooks for trips, and the Blue Guides are the most informative and educated.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide, but it only meets certain travel needs..
Review:

If you are looking for a guide that will help you "narrow down" the choices of sights to see in Venice, this one is not for you. If you are looking for extensive lists and reviews of hotels, again this is not for you. Finally, if you're looking for detailed restauraunt information, you won't find it here. Basically, this guide is not a planning guide. I have used the Internet for most of my planning (e-mail me if you need some help finding some great sites [e-mail]).

What this guide does have to offer is an amazing amount of cultural, historic, and artistic information in a very packable sized guide. This will be the guide to read when you are doing your own tours of Venice. It will tell you far more than any tour guide would.

This guide also has map pages included. At first they are difficult to read and understand. But once you get the hang of them, you will love them. They are very detailed, and who wants to be seen walking around a city with a two foot map in their face??

The blue guide also gets you oriented to the city. Even if you don't use the Blue Guide's walks, they will show you which attractions are grouped together and will help you plan your routes (this is the one sense in which this guide works for planning). I haven't left yet,and my guide looks worn!

In conclusion, I am putting together my own itinerary that will contain details like restaurant and hotel addresses. And then this will be the only guidebook that I take with me to Venice. And I am looking forward to reading it and absorbing as much of the city as possible! If you are remotely interested in history and art and more, you will not regret purchasing this guide. I have used many guidebooks for trips, and the Blue Guides are the most informative and educated.

Rating:
Summary: So you want to see Venice
Review: If you want to explore the soul of Venice, if you want to absorb every square centimeter of her charm, if you don't want to miss a thing, if you want to know all about every delightful thing you see, this is your guide book and none other. You'll never find these wonderful places any other way, and you'll never wonder what you're looking at anywhere in Venice.

The Blue Guides are incomparable: the are indispensable for a lover of the visual arts, a history buff, or a committed traveller.

Rating:
Summary: Art, Architecture and History - it's all here!
Review: The amazingly rich Blue Guides have been around for years and years - I recently bought a hardback Rome Blue Guide from 1964! - and they just keep getting better and better. If you're like me, and have a passion for art and history, they're the best guides available. No glossy photos, and dense with details, they're not the book for everyone - but because they concisely describe nearly every corner of the city, they ARE the guidebook for some of us.

I use other guidebooks for planning (Access is excellent, and Littlewood's "A Literary Companion to Venice" is great for walking tours) but the Blue Guide is only one I carry in my purse every day in Venice.