Lonely Planet Venice & the Veneto City Guide [ペーパーバック]

****1/2 (4.5 stars)
Venice is a unique city, in beauty and history; one time it was the capital of the Venetian republic, and its protector is Saint Mark, shared with Alexandria, Egypt. Its university was and still is in nearby Padua, where two of my graduate professors once invited me to see its first anatomy theatre. I visited Venice many times, as a graduate student, as a project manager with little time at hand, with my family in the 1980's, and while on consulting jobs in Vicenza.

This brief opening meant to insinuate that two strong points in this Lonely Planet guide are the pristine beautiful photos, and the tours and red entries: Grand Canal, Venice in Art. Top Sights come in blue, and are cool; San Marco, Palazzo Ducale, Lido, Murano are the famous ones together with the Ponte (bridge) Realto, these are what I have shown my family, three decades ago. Now my first born, worked out a 3/4 week master plan for touring Bella Italia, starting with Venice. Unique to guides is an informing cultural and historical "backup."

With my acquaintance with Venice, Italian language, a top notch guide is another window you could update your information, and refresh your memory. I got this guide as a help to expand our four days to Venice to memory set point, but I am not ready to give it to him right away. It is really engaging and enjoyable. I will not finish before telling you this; Venetian coffee shop servers (Garcons) collect the total of your order ASA they get it to you. Do not be offended, it seems historically sailors sneaked away without paying.
Enjoy Venice with this fine LP guide. So Go

The front cover of the Lonely Planet guide to Venice and the Veneto promises a "pull-out map"; "comprehensive listings"; and "full detail" about "top sites." The back cover provides statistics of what we shall find inside the book: "2 expert authors; 29 maps; 100 islands; 149 kms of canals, and 1500 years of art and architecture".

Except for the perforated map, which, because it is not laminated, is likely to tear--or blow away into a canal--the book fails to live up to it's promises. As one who both knows and loves Venice, I found this book to be frustrating (The same places are mentioned repeatedly with duplicate information). I would hate to be a first-time visitor, trying to find my way around the city, because the guide seems more of a maze than the city itself. If one watches directions on the walls, one will eventually arrive--respectively--at San Marco, The Accademia, Rialto, or the Ferrovia--the railway terminal; it is, therefore, actually difficult to get lost in the city of Venice itself; however, it is very easy to get lost within the pages of this guide (The index, for instance, is found not at the end of the book, but somewhere between the authors' acknowledgments, blank pages for notes, and the misnamed "Venice and the Veneto Maps", in which any part of the Veneto, mentioned briefly in the body of the book, is missing. A minuscule map of Riviera Brenta, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Veneto Wine Country, and The Dolomites is to be found way back on page 164.

Time was--back in the 'nineties of the last century--when Lonely Planet guides were -da non mancare- [not to be missed]: their glossy paper was replete with splendid photographs; these were accompanied by insightful commentaries; plenteous maps; and organised in an orderly manner that made them easy to use. In fact, I used to collect Lonely Planet Guides, not only for countries I did visit [Their exceptional guide to Turkey was an informative feast for the eyes] but also merely to gaze at those I would probably never get a chance to visit [I am thinking of their splendid guide to Chile and Argentina].

Alas, the recession seems to have struck the Lonely Planet: the paper is no longer glossy; the photos are few; the commentary is sparse, rather than comprehensive; the maps are negligible, and the book is utterly disorganised, with too many citations that mention an attraction--e.g., a bar or restaurant--and then advise you to look at another page, and, when you do, the result is less than enlightening. [Example: on page 34, the reader is told of a budget wine-bar, All'Arco, and then referred to page 104, where it is cited as a top choice and briefly described; it is also mentioned briefly on page 105; the reader is then instructed to see the map on page 292, a detailed map of the Sestiere di San Polo, which is studded with lots of little numbers and symbols; if one looks at the top of the page, one is referred to page 294, for the key to the numbers and symbols on page 292. By the time one gets back to the map on page 292 and begins to sort out the symbols, one is ready to ruin Venice's delicate ecology by tossing the book into the nearest rio.].

And this is a shame, because the principal author, Alison Bing, clearly loves Venice, as her rapturous prose in the opening pages, as well as her informative chapter on "Understanding Venice and the Veneto", which has been sandwiched between Day Trips and a less-than-practical section on the language, demonstrate [Unless one has studied Italian, it is hardly useful informing one--under 'basics'--that the language has two forms of 'You': "use the polite Lei (lay) if you are talking to strangers, officials, or people older than you. With people familiar to you, or younger than you, you can use the informal Tu (too)." If one knows that much Italian grammar (and the proper tenses of the verbs that accompany the pronouns), one hardly needs the rest of the vocabulary, which is mostly lists of food, and phrases that I can guarantee, you will not need in the most serene city of Venice: -Vorrei noleggiare una bicicletta- [I would like to rent a bicycle]. Far more useful would be -sciopero domani-, a notice that is likely to be suddenly slapped on the wall of a vaporetto stop as you wait for the water-bus, informing you of the next day's city-wide transportation strike.].

Bottom Line: They don't write Lonely Planet Guides these days like they did in those days.

I delayed writing this review because I was hoping to revisit Venice this spring. Time and family responsibilities intervened and the trip never happened but reading the Lonely Planet guide to Venice & the Veneto helped me get over the disappointment until next spring (my favorite time in Venice).

First, the book is a good size - it is small enough that you could carry it along on your trip and then stash it in a camera bag or back pack and not feel there was too much extra weight - a small thing but the kind of clever idea guide book makers must have learned from the old red, hard cover Baedeker guide days (I collect them and they are really cool!) Throw in the very useful pull out map (Baedeker's always had great maps - just not removable) and I score another star for this guide.

As soon as you open the book, you are greeted with a brief welcome to Venice and then you are offered their thoughts on the top 10 sights of Venice. Obvious ones like Saint Mark's church and Palazzo Ducale may seem a bit, well, obvious, but they also suggest day trips, for example to the Dolomites and the Palladian Vicenza which I think was a nice surprise. Plus they suggest ways to take tours (on the water by various conveyances and by foot) and even cover the needs of travelers who may have a disability. My wife teaches the disabled so I liked that as well (another star?).

But for me, Italy is food as well as sights and while Venice is not always thought of as Italy's best place to experience great food, you can eat well and the recommendations in the "eating" section outline lots of choices for budget eating, classic dishes, late night, etc., all on one page. Nice... They didn't write about my personal favorite cheap-eats place - VinoVino. Not great food (just simple and good) but was recommended by a local and proved to be quite reasonable.

They follow this with sections on drinking and nightlife, entertainment and of course, shopping - all laid out in the same logical style. They had the good idea to include not only phone numbers and addresses, they added web site URL's as well. In a world of smart phones and the fully connected traveler, this definitely helps and is the benefit of buying a new guide book before setting out.

The rest of the book goes into details on the many things to see and do in each of Venice's many neighborhoods. Each has a well mapped walking tour with numbered stops for art, food, drinks and shopping. Quite clever and useful, even for the seasoned visitor to Venice.

Towards the back of the book, they have sections such as a day in the life of a Venetian, its past and current history, even a few interesting tidbits about art, film and literature. These serve as great arm chair travel and helped get me over some of my disappointment over not being able to go to Italy this spring.

Finally, there is an A to Z section loaded with useful information about time, money, phones and even toilets.

They end the book with a section where you can write notes, pages of detailed maps and, as I said earlier, a good pull out map.

I rate it one star for the size, two stars for the overall design, one star for the maps and one star for the excellent and breezy writing style of the two authors.

Highly recommended.