Time Out Florence & Tuscany (Time Out Guides)

Rating:
Summary: A visitor's best friend
Review: For a guide covering so many subjects about Florence, including ones you wouldn't find in other, more classic guidebooks, like for example Film, Theatre and Dance and Contemporary Art Galleries, I found this book extraordinarily detailed and comprehensive. The book covers Florence and Tuscany, but the Florence art and sightseeing sections most definitely gave all the places, works of art and monuments I could have wanted to see, as well as recounting amusing and offbeat stories about them together with the straight cultural background. Info about artists was fascinating and easy to read, and there was a wealth of useful and practical tips I'd never have found in other guides. The shopping section gave some amazing places that led to a true shopping spree, and the bars and nightlife chapters helped me pick out the places I'd like and didn't let me down once. The layout is stunning, and the times and address info for the shops and restaurants did the trick, despite the Italians' habit of making up opening hours as they go along. Apart from being useful and accurate, this book was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I'd recommend it to anyone but the driest, most humourless of readers.

Rating:
Summary: great guide
Review: I just got back from a summer in Florence learning Italian. This guide was great! Useful hints and practical information for those like me staying for longer trips, and perfect for shorter holidays (my family came for visits and this guide was all we ever needed to see the museums and famous sights). It also helped in choosing where to eat and drink and we loved the short itineraries. My only complaints are that the maps weren't detailed enough and the Tuscany section was a bit sparse, though it helped us in the right direction. All things considered, though, buying an extra map is a small price to pay for all the inside info you get from Time Out. Def the best guide to Florence.

Rating:
Summary: This book looks fantastic until you actually get there...
Review: I took a chance on this book, mainly because there are only two true english bookstores(small though) in Munich where I reside, and I was going to Florence on a whim. I'm a Lonely Planet veteran, but with my time constraint, I wouldn't have been able to receive the most recent edition in time. Anyways...this book looked great from the beginning; almost enough to make me a convert. The book is well organized, had pictures of the important art(or so I thought), and went off on interesting appropriate tangents. However the true value of the book reared its head once I arrived in Florence. Reared its head meaning, I actually had to buy another travel guide when I was in Florence. The map was pretty useless(as many of you know, there are a lot of backstreets in Florence!) For ex. Timeout touts Vivoli as the premier Ice Cream place in Florence, yet doesn't provide the street to Vivoli on their map. Also their hours for many places are off(ex. Cibreo - the hours for Cibreo trattoria are wrong, it opens at 7pm...if you get there at 7.30, you will not eat until 9pm, I got lucky and a friend told me the true hours before I left, but when I did leave the trattoria, the queue was like something out of the Uffizi...arrive @ the trattoria @ 6.45 or you'll be sorry!), but my main complaint is the art. It appeared before I left that Timeout went into great detail with their coverage of the museums and can't miss artworks, but I was very disappointed. Most notable example was the Dome of the Duomo; the fresco is absolutely astounding; how someone/people managed to paint such a lovely fresco on such a huge awkward space is astounding. And there are so many images it is daunting. But Timeout merely says for the fresco that it is a painting of the Last Judgement. Wow to say the least. To sum up...if you don't wish to walk down backstreets, have no intention of trying Vivoli, and don't mind making reservations @ the main Cibreo restaurant(which costs twice as much), and are a less than casual fan of art, then this book is for you. I have nothing against Timeout(I may try them again for a smaller city, I realize covering the whole of Florence must be very difficult), but for this book specifically, this is my honest opinion. Hope this helps.

Add on: I recently finished Christopher Hibbert's Rise and Fall in the House of Medici, and I highly recommend reading it before you go Florence as well; it will help put everything into a historical chronological perspective. I also forgot to mention that I brought along a good novel which was a life saver in some of those extremely long queues to the sites. The novel was truly invaluable. Thirdly...I want to clarify my rating; I rated this novel on its ability to stand on its own without consultation of another resource, and didn't feel that it adequately did so in comparison to the other guide books I have used. Cheers.

Rating:
Summary: The best all-around guide
Review: When I moved to Florence from New York a year ago, TimeOut Florence became my bible, my first and best resource for the city. When you get to Italy, and Florence in particular, you find out that information (such as opening times and prices) tends to change often, but this guide has all the pertinent contact info - always call before you go, it goes without saying. (And buy a map when you get there - none of the guides has a good one, perhaps because Florence is a rat warren of tiny streets.) Without my TimeOut it would have taken me this long just to find out about many of the shops, restaurants, and services it lists. I highly recommend it.