The Rough Guides' Venice Directions - Edition 2 (Rough Guide Directions)

Slim, stylish and pocketable, Rough Guide DIRECTIONS Venice is full of ideas for long-weekends or flying visits to one of Europe''s most popular city break destinations. Providing accurate, up-to-date information this full-colour guide includes 28 themed sections – from "Death in Venice" to "Eighteenth-century Art" – to help you decide what to do, 24 hours a day. There are critical reviews of all the best places to stay, the best bars and the shops, all keyed to accompanying easy-to-use maps. Additional chapters cover festivals and special events from the Film Festival to the spectacular Regata Storica. The language section has a useful menu reader and handy phrases to have you speaking a little Italian by the time you arrive.

All you need to get the most out of Venice.

However, leaf through hundreds and hundreds of its pages and you may be excused for thinking you are reading a telephone directory. The book laboriously lists everything that there is to be listed, but it does that in a dull tone that lacks focus, inspiration and personal touch. I have seen tax planning guides that were more thrilling to read.

The information is all there, but you don't want to go through it. There is nothing to focus attention and nothing to thrill you - just a steady stream of facts and information. Sometimes, it seems they were trying put in as much as possible and to go for the highest possible number of pages. Thick book equals good book at Rough Guide publishing, but this approach does not serve all destinations equally well: what is OK for Africa is not necessarily true for most sophisticated and refined cities in Europe.

Maybe if I was about to settle in Venice for a few months, I would get a Rough Guide to keep myself on top of all practical info, but for a briefer trip you need more inspiration and more color. Travel writing is not the same thing as directory compilation, and this sheer sparkle of writing talent is something that is so distinctly missing.

Buying a Rough Guide or a Lonely Planet guide is very much an ideological decision: many readers do it because they feel that they subscribe to the same ideas about the world that form editorial policy of these two publishing houses.

However, if one is able to quite simply look for best guidebook which would make a trip enjoyable, Rough Guide Venice would hardly be one of them.


La Serenissima   September 13, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Over the past few weeks I think I have read all the guide books on Venice there are on the market (a very crowded market), and this one leads the pack.

It is not for the person looking for pretty pictures, that is true. But it is the most comprehensive, most insightful, and ultimately most helpful.

The Time Out Guide is also very good, especially its listings section, some interesting background, terrific colour maps (complete with street index), and nice pics and Lonely Planet looks more than adequate, but it is Rough Guide I am most impressed with.

That is because of the depth of information on many places. There are really clear black & white maps of the layouts of things like the Basilica and Doge's Palace, and sestiere maps. I decided this is the guide I want to read at night or in a quiet corner when actually visiting places.