Susie Boulton | Christopher Catling
1 Aaah, Venezia
Another good portable travel guide. Readers won't be disappointed and will find plenty of good, practical information.
2 Make Eyewitness essential part of your travel fun
DK's Eyewitness Travel Guides are our best travel companion during our tour of Europe. Full of tips, pictures, maps, site info, history, local reference ... every page is not only helpful but beautiful. The layout anf format is very innovative and reader friendly, a ture standing out from any other travel books. It was interesting to see that almost everywhere we went, we saw other people (tourists apparently) holding and checking the same DK book on the street.
The coverage is comprehensive and growing year after year, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice ... every city we went have its own Eyewitness serie. We studied them before our trip, consulted them during our trip, and kept them as memo and photo book after our trip. They are simply essential part of the travel fun.
I recommend buying indiviual city/area book wherever possible instead of the country book. For example, buy Rome, Florence, and Venice books instead of Eyewitness Italy (unless your destination doesn't have its own Eyewitness). That way you get more detailed and targeted info.
3 Great Book With Stunning Visuals
I have to confess up front. I love these books. I must have a dozen. I really like the Paris book, and the one for Prague, and Stockholm, and South Africa, and .... You get all the detailed material similar to other great travel books plus you get great visuals.
The photos and descriptions and cutaway drawings are excellent and more than make up for any lack of small detail. But there is lots of detail here. The book includes the history of Venice and many details on the art, art galleries, parks, cutaway views of historical buildings, and many other things of interest. That is the good part.
You will be amazed with the visuals and cutaway architectural views. A great book, very detailed, with all the regular stuff such as maps, rstaurants, hotels, etc.
Jack in Toronto
4 Excellent job - you'll need very little to supplement this
Eyewitness did its usual brilliant job with Venice & Veneto. I bought many guides available to this city but took only two with me: DK Eyewitness and City Secrets (the latter one is an excellent assortment of subjective specialist views, get it if you take your trip seriously).
Descriptions of usual high-profile highlights and lesser-known places are clear and accurate, as usual, pictorial plans of churches and streets are very helpful.
Accommodation and dining sections are quite superficial, I increasingly find these parts not the strongest bit of Eyewitness guides: they tend to focus on most famous places which rarely represent the best value for money and often are shameless tourist traps. In fact, there is no need to list specific places - what the guide could do is present general guidelines on what to avoid (such as places with menus in five languages) and what to look for (places that don't take credit cards, for example).
I found the map of Venice at the end of the book completely sufficient and as easy to use as could be possible in the Venetian maze of streets of multiple names and multiple spellings.
Veneto part is not really the best bit of the book - Verona is covered only adequately and Padova receives simple an inadequate treatment. The authors probably had to find a balance between thickness of the book and depth of coverage.
I was pleased with coverage of less obvious areas such as Dorsoduro and Canareggio, which are still inexplicably ignored by 90% of visitors (well, maybe they don't have time).
All the criticisms above are observations of only minor glitches of what is a very, very strong guide and what probably should be your first choice for a trip to Venice.
5 Dorling Kindersley captures Elegant Venice
I bought this book for my daughter before she went on her trip to Italy. DK Eyewitness Travel Guides books are a high quality publication. This volume is a useful as well as attractive book. If you need to deviate from your travel plans this is a very useful book. It contains exhaustive information on lodging, dining, points of interest and contains useful maps and photographs. She found it to be invaluable.
6 Just back from Venice
We enjoyed our trip to magical Venice. This Eyewitness Guide was very helpful. The maps are useful but the print is very tiny. (thus, four stars). The description of the buildings on the Grand Canal was great. I was providing my wife and I a verbal guide from the book as we cruised. A fellow was video-taping the canal and ask me to narrate from the book !
7 Great Travel Guide, Beautiful Coffee Table Book!
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Summary:
Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!
The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.
The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.
Specifics:
The guides are organized as follows:
How to use this guide
Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
Geographical Regions
............Introduction Venice
........................Intro to Venice
........................Portrait of Venice
........................Through the Year (events, holidays)
........................History
............Venice Area by Area, each section includes:
........................Introduction to street by street area
........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings
........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.
............Veneto Area by Area (same format as above)
Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
............Hotels
............Restaurants, bars, cafes
............Shops / Markets
............Entertainment
Survival Information
............Practical
........................Tourist info., Etiquete, Personal Security and Health
........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.
............Travel Information
........................Planes, trains and automobiles, signs
............Street Maps
............General Index
............Phrase Book
Discussion:
The book begins with "Introducing Venice", including a complete map, a review, the city's history, and Venice thought the Year - including events, etc.
Areas with an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or forums, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.
Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.
The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions
The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.
Conclusion:
Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.
8 Eyewitness Guides Can't Be Beat!
Eyewitness Travel Guides are encyclopedias for the city and surrounding area. Anything AND everything you must know about is covered with gorgeous pictures and historical background on churches, towns, people and food in Venice & the Veneto. I NEVER travel without a DK Eyewitness Guide.
Please note that the hotel and restaurant information in the back has been little useful because nowadays, the internet,
word-of-mouth and frankly, travel guru Rick Steves' are more reliable in the hotel area.
And as far as the restaurants are concerned, that's not something you can plan ahead of time. Recommendations upon arrival in Italy are best. The natives know where to enjoy the local eats.
Don't leave home without Eyewitness. Ciao!
9 I'm a DK addict
OK . . . I'm actually a travel book addict, and I bought four different (yes, I know it's excessive) guides for my recent trip to Venice. The DK guide was my favorite. It is completely engrossing, with actual pictures of the food, the palazza, many of the art works, etc. It's a perfect guide for a 'high points' look at the most touristed sights: the Basilica, the Doge's Palace, etc. My favorite feature turned out to be "A View of the Grand Canal." I actually sat with the guide open in my lap on the vaporetto ride from Piazalle Roma to my stop near the Salute and could watch as every important church and palace on the canal passed by. It was so much fun! And the guide is absolutely gorgeous! Even after my trip, I have enjoyed just flipping through the guide to take a look at some of the beautiful photos and drawings. It's a great souvenir in that it has photos of many things you are not permitted to photograph: the insides of churches, museums, etc.
So why only four stars? Well, the guide is actually a little light on more practical information, such as where you can get a good meal for a decent price. It's full of all the expected tourist recommendations (e.g., Harry's Bar), without telling you about how to navigate a good baccari like a Venetian (although I did think the pages which included descriptions AND photos of typical Venetian dishes was excellent). If you have a budget of a few hundred dollars a day to plop down on food, that may be ok. The rest of us will need some help. And while it may be an unfair criticism, the guide gives all its information in lire. Unless you want to carry around a currency converter to figure out the Euro equivalent, I'd supplement this guide with another. In fairness though, I'd like to give it 4.5 stars. It is really an excellent book.
10 Invaluable guide to Venice
My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed Venice using this guide to explore the city on our own. We highly recommend it to people who would like to visit the city on their own and learn about the history, culture, architecture, etc. in depth.
11 one of two essential books on Venice
DK has done an outstanding job with this book. The photographs and illustrations are first rate - angles, cropping, detail enhancement, color/lighting - all are superbly produced and intelligently presented. In addition, there is plenty of helpful information (locations, hours, tips ). History/background is brief, but as expected in a general survey guide. The heavier, art quality pages add a bit to the weight (approx 1.4 lbs), but it is definitely worth it, given the volume's beauty and durability. For any trip to Venice and the surrounding area, this is one of two essential books (Venice for Pleasure, is the other).
12 Beautiful Venice from Dorling Kindersley
DK Eyewitness Travel Guides books are synonymous with Quality. I have seen other DK books and they really do make a quality product. The high-quality paper they print on makes the photographs and text appear brilliant. This tour book on Venice contains just about everything you can think of and then some. Places to visit (by land or canal), places to dine, maps, hotels, history, currency, transportation and much more are all attractively detailed. This is a great book if you are thinking about or are planning a trip to Venice. Even if you are not taking a trip this is a good book about the city and culture. I highly recommend Dorling Kindersley (DK) books.
13 Excellent book
This book was REALLY helpful. It had information on everything and the explanations were excellent. A well made book, it has beautiful color pictures and detailed layouts of all the sites in Venice. You couldn't ask for anything better.
BTW, don't waste your money on the plastic-coated map (sold seperately). Instead get the Fodor's guide and use its map instead.
14 EXCELLENT TRAVEL COMPANION
The first time I went to Italy I only had this travel book with me. In fact, I don't think you need any other book when you visit this beautiful city. It's got pictures, maps, description, history, and guide for where to stay, eat, shop - depending on your budget. I spent four days and three nights sightseeing by myself in Venice - and it was great and exciting!! The guide was very helpful in helping navigate through the city's winding streets. Then again, there are signs posted everywhere on how to get to the main sites. The street names were also well posted. In fact, I used Eyewitness' map in the back of this book to plan my trip and visits to sites. It's a very durable book and will hold up in your normal wear 'n' tear during your travels. I went back the second time and only relied on this book. There's no need for any other guide.!!
15 The Best of the Lot
Guidebooks in general are going to have their limitations. The gentleman that complained about this one answered his own complaint. A larger, folding map is certainly an essential when trying to navigate (and I use the term literally here) this city. That said, this appeared to me on a recent visit to be extremely helpful, especially in terms of giving me an artistic/cultural overview of the main sites. The same could be said about the same company's editions of Rome and Italy proper. They don't dwell on frivolous detail. They are relatively compact and they will guide you to the places you want to go if you are interested primarily in art, history, and architecture, which I was. As an aside, for anyone who is serious about art I would suggest that before you go you aquaint or refresh yourself with Vasari's
(Penguin suggested), Cellini's "Autobiography," and any Art book published by Rizzoli. Buy your guidebooks beforehand and determine which artists and which works are most important to you and try to pre-plan in your minds eye at least the path you want to take. Also ask some travel agents or discover on a website the museum hours and when the publice is allowed in free. My only chance to visit the Vatican, for instance, came on a Sunday, when there was free admission and early closure, which led to a rush-job through the sistine chappel. Don't rely entirely on a site such as Rick Steves. My friend did and thought he could pretty much wing it through Italy. The "play it by ear approach" will lead to unbelievably costly delays and dissapointments. Plan, plan, plan.
16 It's Easy to Get Lost in Venice...
and with this unhelpful guide, it's especially easy-in fact it almost broke up my marriage! The maps are simply not detailed enough for reliable navigation and the fact that you must see adjoining maps for continuation make it especially frustrating -in a city where the average street seems to be only 1 block long-streets rarely continue from one map to the other. Using the maps became an exercise in exhaustion. Just a bit of overlap between map pages would have greatly facilitated navigation.The book is also not up to date. For instance the Vaporetto routes that run from the large car park at Tronchetto are not different than the ones that actually serviced that stop, leading me to have to alter plans as to how I would get to my hotel.
I also found the restaurant recommendations unreliable and wound up doing far better trusting my own instincts. In fairness, I did use one of the recommended hotels and was quite pleased with the accommodations, and the index is quite thorough and easy to use. In sum, if, for some unexplained reason, you feel compelled to purchase this guidebook, buy it because of the pictures and by all means, make sure you have a good map to supplement it.
17 Covers Pretty much all of venice
I bought this book before I went on a trip to italy. It is extremely informative about venice and has a lot of useful information. However, I have to agree that the map can be difficult to work with at times. I got pretty badly lost using it because it did not fully list all the 'streets'(there were 2 streets of the same name in the same area - go figure). However, My experience has been that maps in venice are dodgy at best.My only real complaint about this book is it's weight. It's quite heavy to carry in a bag when you are sightseeing - aside from that - it's a very highly reccomended book if you are researching a trip to Venice. It's also great for re-identifying photos correctly later:)
18 The perfect travelling companion
This wonderful guide book is crammed with pertinent information, helpful as well as lovely photographs, detailed maps and valuable suggestions. Refering to it constantly while we explored Venice enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of this enchanting city and somehow with all this the book is remarkably light weight. I plan to buy only Eyewitness Travel Guides in the future!
19 A must-have if you're going to Venice!
Me and my family went to Venice in February and we are very happy to have discovered this book before we left. It has almost all you need to survive in Venice. I'm very glad of all the good restaurants mentioned in the book and though they were a bit hard to find we really got there after all. The map is a bit small but you manage with it. The book also explaines the history of all the buildings and is very teaching. A great guide that you must have with you when you travel there. I noticed that I really wasn't the only one with the same book!
20 Best illustrations, maps!
After reading this awesome book, I can't wait to see it in person. It will be like a return trip. Maps, illustrations, directions are wonderful; we used the one on France during previous trip. Found many out of the way places.
21 Best illustrations, maps!
After reading this awesome book, I can't wait to see it in person. It will be like a return trip. Maps, illustrations, directions are wonderful; we used the one on France during previous trip. Found many out of the way places.
22 A city like Venezia deserves a guide like this.
The best guide to Venezia and the Veneto. The pages about the Grand Canale deserve an award for its beauty and first quality information.
23 A visually sumptuous regional guide
The British firm of Dorling Kindersley is famous for its visual encyclopedic guides, and this title from the Eyewitness series lives up to the reputation of its predecessors. The book is packed with photographs, three-dimensional renderings, historical tidbits, and travel advice. It makes a slight sacrifice of depth to breadth by including chapters on the Veneto Plain, Verona and Lake Gardia, and the Dolomites. - Durant Imboden, Venice for Visitors, http://govenice.miningco.co
