Bed and Blessings Italy

Rating:
Summary: Delighted to find such a unique book.
Review: I found the book to be well written and entertaining - delighted to find such a unique book. My wife and I are planning a trip to Italy next year. This book quickly focused us in on the places to visit, style of accommodations which we can afford, and some background information upon which to do some more study/research. Highly recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: Desparately Need Updating
Review: I traveled to Italy in October of 2002 and spent one month there, relying on Bed and Blessings for accurate information on where to stay inexpensively. I was truly dissapointed. I ended up finding fellow travellers to be a more reliable source of information than "Bed and Blessings."

This book has not been updated since 1999 and over half the places I called did not have correct phone numbers in the book. Others were out of business or converted to hotels. Also, Italy now uses the Euro which is not listed in the book. One place listed in the book where I stayed, had fleas and they sufficiently dined on me. I fled the place the next morning to a local hotel.

Julia needs to get busy updating the information in the book if she wants to continue to sell it as a useful reference. I would not buy it again unless it is updated.

Rating:
Summary: Very helpful
Review: We have used this book as a starting point to plan seven trips to Italy over the past four years. For the most part, we have found the contact information reasonable accurate. We've found it still to be a very credible source, even though the information IS a couple of years old.

A bit of advice based on our experiences.

1. It may be helpful to send faxes during Italian business hours. Some of the convents seem to turn their faxes off during their night-time hours.
2. When corresponding with the convents should include your e-mail address. Recently, we've noticed that many of the convents that we fax respond to us by e-mail. This simplifies things.
3. Not all convents and monasteries answer faxes promptly. First, an overseas fax may be a significant expense for a non-profit religious organization. Second, if they have no vacancies, they may not respond. We've learned that if we don't get a response to a confirmed fax receipt, we may try once again or follow up by mail. If we still don't get a response, then we move on. Third, keep in mind that if they have a technical problem, their fax may be out of service for several days (or longer).