Anna Streiffert

This beautiful travel guide explores Italy by dividing its northern, central and southern regions into 20 areas. Within each area, the guide identifies a very small number of truly must-see locations, sights and activities, then a larger number of other points of interest, and devotes a page or a paragraph to each. Some sections also include “A Short Walk” -- usually about a mile, focused on a theme of the area. The guide’s design and style is trademark DK Eyewitness, with literally a show more thousand color images and probably a hundred maps (do note that the pages are now a matte paper instead of glossy).

A couple of notes: 1) this is an exploratory guide, best for inspiration in the early stages of travel planning, and 2) with few exceptions, it does not include listings for lodging, dining or entertainment unless such sites are iconic destinations in themselves (numerous online sites have excellent, up-to-date information on all of that anyway).

It’s a lively volume -- an inspiring planner or satisfying armchair traveler. I approached it knowing I wanted to return to central Italy, especially Tuscany; but after reading, I’m much more interested in exploring northern Italy!

(Review based on a copy of the 2020 edition provided by the publisher.) show less

This was great for choosing which areas we wanted to visit because of the color pictures. I do recommend it for that. I would never pack it to carry around with me on my trip though. It weighs an absolute ton! I carried Rick Steves books with me on my trip.

This book was very useful when we visited Italy (Rome, Florence and Venice). I love the DK guides. Lovely colourful photographs, plus enough text to get me where I want to go.

This is a very comprehensive guide. There are detailed maps for many cities. I especially like the pictures and illustrations which make it easy to see what sights you may or may not want to visit.