Italy - Guide Books & Maps

Blue Guide The Marche and San Marino (Blue Guides)
A cultural guidebook to this diverse region rich in art, history and architecture. Full-colour throughout with detailed maps and diagrams. Includes Blue Guides Recommended dining suggestions.

Umbria and Marche (Footprint Italia)
The green heart of Italy has hills aplenty and medieval towns atop many of them. The wealth of historical and artistic treasures in towns such as Assisi and Orievto is extraordinary. Stunning landscapes and enormous panoramic vistas are around every corner and the Apennines, snow-capped in winter before being enrobed in spring flowers, make ideal walking country. Alternatively, you could laze on a sandy Mediterranean beach with great local wine and delicious pasta, flavoured with the mysterious truffles that grow here.

Tuscany (Footprint Italia)
Tuscany is quintessential Italy: It's home to the nation's most celebrated city - Florence, the birth place of the Renaissance. Then there are the exquisite hill towns, like Cortona; medieval Siena, with it's shell-shaped piazza, Il Campo; Lucca, perfectly preserved inside its ancient walls; Arezzo, where you can see some of Piero della Francesca's finest frescoes. 

Including sections on what the locals say to help you find those lesser-known gems, a month-by-month guide to pros and cons of visiting at certain times of the year, tips on the perfect places to picnic and pick-up your goodies, plus a series of great driving routes and city walks.

The Rough Guide Map Tuscany
Tuscany is one of the most spectacular regions in Europe and the Rough Guide map helps you get the most from your trip, whether you're hiking through the Monti Sibillini or driving on some of Italy's most scenic roads. At a scale of 1:200,000 there is enough detail to indicate everything from autostrada to backroads and from city streets to hiking trails. As with all the maps in the Rough Guide series, this map is printed on Polyart™ pape, durable enough to survive time spent in the car seat-back, rucksack, and cafe table-top.

The Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria (Rough Guide to Tuscany & Umbria)
The Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria is the most complete guide with detailed coverage of all the best attractions Tuscany and Umbria have to offer. Discover the vibrant regions of Tuscany and Umbria; with full accounts of the major centres of Florence, Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Assisi and Orvieto, complete with coverage of the many smaller towns and villages. Find detailed practical advice on what to see and do whilst having up-to-the-minute recommendations for authentic restaurants and bars, plus insider tips for the best shopping and entertainment options.

The Rough Guide to Italy
The ultimate travel guide with clear maps and detailed coverage of all the best Italian attractions. You can discover the vibrant Italian regions with the off-the-beaten track information every visitor to Italy needs. Featuring a comprehensive guide to Italy's gastronomic delights; enjoy the best authentic Italian food with regional food guides on each chapter and a section devoted to Italian wines. Packed with detailed, updated maps, you'll find expert tips to help you make the most of Italy's varied landscape, fantastic hikes and city walks in Italy combined with an authoritative background on Italy's rich cultural history, highlighting Italy's spectacular festival culture. Make the most of your holiday with "The Rough Guide to Italy".

Italian (Lonely Planet Phrasebook)

You might think you can get by with just saying 'ciao!' in a sexy growl at every opportunity, but having a bit more of the Italian language at your disposal does prove useful. Grab this phrasebook and hold your own in restaurants, train stations and end-of-season Gucci sales.

• two-way dictionary
• guide to pronunciation and phrase-building
• practicalities - how to talk transport, book a hotel and find your way to the theatre
• the all-important ins and outs of ordering coffee

Rome and Central Italy (Cadogan Guides)
Explore monumental Rome and go beyond the Eternal City's ancient gates to discover what lies outside – volcanic lakes, beaches and islands, refined hill towns, Etruscan tombs and the snowy peaks of the Apennines. Hand-picked and special places to stay and eat, easy-to-use maps, clear layout and rich cultural background detail combine with reliable advice on everything from castles and monuments to pizzas and piazzas. Captivating tales of heroic poets, colourful popes, ruthless emperors and fascinating antiquities combine to make a guide that is as interesting as it is dependable.

Gardens of Italy
This inspirational book is a lavishly illustrated survey of more than sixty major gardens in every part of Italy, from the lakes north of Milan down to Ravello in the south.

Italy Central: TCI.02 (Touring Club Italiano Road Maps)
The Touring Club is widely recognized as a leader in road and street maps: its series of maps and atlases on a scale of 1:200.000 are among the most widely consulted in the country, and are used officially for the calculation of topographical distances and road routes. Equally appreciated are the TCI's detailed tourist maps of towns and cities. Look out for TCI Tuscany, TCI Umbria& Marche and TCI Lazio maps.

Northern Lazio: An Unknown Italy
Most visitors to Italy think of Tuscany and Umbria. Yet there is a little known but perhaps even more beautiful area called La Tuscia. La Tuscia is mainly situated in Northern Lazio. This book is one of the very few books in English to cover the area. It is excellent. It mentions places that don't seem to appear on the maps. But it and you will be inspired to visit this beautiful area of Italy... Review by Edward Drohan

Tuscany (AA Spiral Guides)
The "AA Spiral Guides" offer a witty and lively reading style, with bold colours and strong classic photographs making them an appealing and fun read. The magazine section echoes the look and feel of a glossy Sunday supplement and coupled with entertaining text will really set the scene to your trip to Tuscany. The guide also includes, listings, walks and tours and a streetplan of the area, along with fold-back flat spiral binding for flat folding pages, this is the ideal holiday guide to Tuscany.

Tasting Tuscany: Exploring and Eating off the Beaten Track
Beyond the better-known cities with tourists, souvenir and fast-food shops, Tuscany is made up of hundreds of small clustered hill towns set in stunning scenery with lovely churches, piazzas and rural art that is worthy of the finest city museums. Beth has included in her book suggested itineraries so that the reader can follow in her footsteps and explore a Tuscany that is off the beaten track. A central feature of the itineraries are the restaurants that will allow the reader to experience a culture of life that values natural and traditional food. "Tasting Tuscany" includes over one hundred recipes from restaurants so that even when you are back at home you can recreate the delicious and authentic food you will have enjoyed on your travels.

Umbria and the Marches: Car Tours and Walks (Landscapes)
The main focal points of this guide are the two most beautiful areas of the Apennines in Umbria and the Marches - the idyllic, deeply-etched valley of Valnerina in Umbria and the legendary Monti Sibillini which rise to almost 2500m and lie mainly in the Marches. Naturally, there is a wealth of art and architecture to be seen en route, so this is an indispensable guidebook for those who wish to explore the region on foot or by car.

Italy's Sibillini National Park: Walking and Trekking Guide (Cicerone Guide)
The delights of Italy's magical Monti Sibillini are revealed for the first time for English speakers in this new walking guide, covering 21 walks and the eight-day Grande Anello dei Sibilline trek that encircles the rugged mountainous massif and Sibillini National Park. Vast highlands smothered in blazes of wildflowers, wondrous canyons burrowing deep into mountainsides, hospitable villages, approachable ridges with breathtaking views, days on end of vast horizons - the Monti Sibillini have something for everyone.

Rome (AA Spiral Guides)
This guide combines bright, modern design, witty and informative writing with a unique and very practical fold-back-flat spiral binding. A collection of highly readable features set the scene in the introductory Magazine section and the "Finding Your Feet" section gives that vital info to get you started. Rome is then split into geographical zones. The must-see sights are covered in depth with insider tips to help you make the most of your time and beat the crowds; suggested itineraries, walks and tours, super-clear maps, where to take a break and where to shop are detailed for each area. And to make sure you're not disappointed, specialist food and drink writers recommend the best places to eat and drink.

Rome: City Guide (Lonely Planet City Guide)

No other city comes close. It may no longer be caput mundi (capital of the world), but Rome is an epic, bubbling-over metropolis harbouring lost empires. One visit and you’ll be hooked. Rome has a glorious monumentality that it wears without reverence. Its architectural heirlooms are buzzed around by car and Vespa as if they were no more than traffic islands. An indispensable and really useful guide to Rome with lots of handy hints and tips.

The Lost World of Pompeii
When the volcano Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the city of Pompeii was buried in ash and rock, then forgotten, left almost perfectly preserved for centuries. Archaeological excavation of the site began in 1748 and revealed extraordinary evidence about public and private life at the height of the Roman Empire. Colin Amery and Brian Curran Jr of the World Monuments Fund describe the history of Pompeii from its origins to its tragic destruction, and discuss the repercussions of the discoveries made there on art, archaeology and interior design. They also explain the ongoing conservation and renovation work that is taking place at the site today.

Tuscany Umbria and the Marches (Cadogan Guide)
This work delves into Tuscany's lavish natural beauty: the dense concentration of Renaissance art that spills out of Florence into Pisa, Lucca and Arezzo. It helps the reader cheer on Siena's frenzied Palio; wander through the sumptuous vineyards of Chianti; explore the medieval hill towns of green Umbria; and visit historic Perugia over the Tiber Valley, the newly restored monuments and architecture of Assisi and the famous cathedral of Orvieto.

The Rough Guide Phrasebook Italian (Rough Guide Phrasebooks)
Learn the romantic language of Italian with the help of this pocket-sized Rough Guide Phrasebook. With A-Z English to Italian and A-Z Italian to English translations, this thoroughly-revised third edition will have you speaking the language even before you arrive. The phrasebook also includes a detailed grammar section and a useful menu and drinks list reader to help you order any aperitivo. With this phrasebook in your back-pocket you are sure to have a good trip.