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Rating: 
Summary: Great for planning an affordable trip to Italy
Review: I just returned from a 2 week trip to Italy, and found this guide useful in filling in the gaps not addressed well by most other guides. If you are looking for an all-in-one guide this is not it, particularly due to the insufficient historical, artistic, and other site-related information, as well as the inferior maps. Also, if you are using a travel agent, then this guide does not add much value for you.Where this guide is most valuable is in the planning process. If you are trying to figure out your itinerary, then this guide provides an overview of all the major destinations, without overwhelming you with a mass of unnecessary, encyclopedic data. Another useful feature is the lists in the front of the book which recommend `bests' in categories such as museums, cathedrals, small hotels, ancient ruins, etc. These lists help focus your research on particular regions of interest, and also in developing a varied itinerary. I also found the hotel selection quite good, especially for midrange accommodations. (Most guides seem to focus on either cheap or expensive.) This book paid for itself easily by guiding me to less expensive hotels that were within my standards. Four of the hotels I stayed in were in this book, and they were all exactly as described, and good values. The restaurant recommendations were uniformly decent, although it's fairly easy to find decent, moderate restaurants in Italy. I recommend asking for advise at your hotel. Admittedly, once I got to Italy, I did not often find this guide useful, but occasionally it provided an unexpected and useful tip. For example, it may recommend a particular store or product, or a particularly convenient bus/ferry and how to use it, or a good takeout gourmet shop. In my case, these tips saved me valuable time and money. (Actually, I would recommend cutting this book up and only taking the relevant sections with you on your trip, since most of the content is geared towards the planning process.)
Rating:
Summary: Great for planning an affordable trip to Italy
Review: I just returned from a 2 week trip to Italy, and found this guide useful in filling in the gaps not addressed well by most other guides. If you are looking for an all-in-one guide this is not it, particularly due to the insufficient historical, artistic, and other site-related information, as well as the inferior maps. Also, if you are using a travel agent, then this guide does not add much value for you. Where this guide is most valuable is in the planning process. If you are trying to figure out your itinerary, then this guide provides an overview of all the major destinations, without overwhelming you with a mass of unnecessary, encyclopedic data. Another useful feature is the lists in the front of the book which recommend 'bests' in categories such as museums, cathedrals, small hotels, ancient ruins, etc. These lists help focus your research on particular regions of interest, and also in developing a varied itinerary. I also found the hotel selection quite good, especially for midrange accommodations. (Most guides seem to focus on either cheap or expensive.) This book paid for itself easily by guiding me to less expensive hotels that were within my standards. Four of the hotels I stayed in were in this book, and they were all exactly as described, and good values. The restaurant recommendations were uniformly decent, although it's fairly easy to find decent, moderate restaurants in Italy. I recommend asking for advise at your hotel. Admittedly, once I got to Italy, I did not often find this guide useful, but occasionally it provided an unexpected and useful tip. For example, it may recommend a particular store or product, or a particularly convenient bus/ferry and how to use it, or a good takeout gourmet shop. In my case, these tips saved me valuable time and money. (Actually, I would recommend cutting this book up and only taking the relevant sections with you on your trip, since most of the content is geared towards the planning process.)
Rating: 
Summary: I CANT WAIT TO TAKE THIS WITH ME!
Review: I spent three hours reading this book in our library but I could not wait to come back to Amazon.com and purchase it. I am traveling to Italy in November and this book could not have come at a better time. It not only contains a detailed map, well organized sections, and in depth information on the most inexpensive hotels to stay at but it gives you all the "behind-the-scene" info that would transform any tourist into a local.... Ciao!
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