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    Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy (Travel Guide eBook)
    Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy (Travel Guide eBook)
    Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy (Travel Guide eBook)
    Ebook467 pages2 hours

    Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy (Travel Guide eBook)

    By Berlitz

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    About this ebook

    From fantastic Florence and the picture-perfect Tuscan countryside, to the grandeur of Rome, and the elegance of Venice, Italy has much to tempt the visitor. Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy is a concise, full-colour travel guide that combines lively text with vivid photography to highlight the best that the country has to offer.

    Inside Italy Pocket Guide:

    Where To Go details all the key sights in the country, while handy maps on the cover flaps help you find your way around, and are cross-referenced to the text.

    Top 10 Attractions gives a run-down of the best sights to take in on your trip.

    Perfect Tour provides an itinerary of the country.

    What To Do is a snapshot of ways to spend your spare time, from exploring vineyards, to walking the streets of Venice, or working your way around Rome's stylish bars.

    Essential information on Italy's culture, including a brief history of the country.

    Eating Out covers the country's best cuisine.

    Curated listings of the best hotels and restaurants.

    A-Z of all the practical information you'll need.

    About Berlitz: Berlitz draws on years of travel and language expertise to bring you a wide range of travel and language products, including travel guides, maps, phrase books, language-learning courses, dictionaries and kids' language products.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInsight Guides
    Release dateMay 1, 2017
    ISBN9781785730368
    Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy (Travel Guide eBook)
    Author

    Berlitz

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      Book preview

      Berlitz Pocket Guide Italy (Travel Guide eBook) - Berlitz

      How To Use This E-Book

      Getting Around the e-Book

      This Pocket Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration and planning advice for your visit to Italy, and is also the perfect on-the-ground companion for your trip.

      The guide begins with our selection of Top 10 Attractions, plus a Perfect Itinerary feature to help you plan unmissable experiences. The Introduction and History chapters paint a vivid cultural portrait of Italy, and the Where to Go chapter gives a complete guide to all the sights worth visiting. You will find ideas for activities in the What to Do section, while the Eating Out chapter describes the local cuisine and gives listings of the best restaurants. The Travel Tips offer practical information to help you plan your trip. Finally, there are carefully selected hotel listings.

      In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

      Maps

      All key attractions and sights in Italy are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map], tap once to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

      Images

      You’ll find lots of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Italy. Simply double-tap an image to see it in full-screen.

      About Berlitz Pocket Guides

      The Berlitz story began in 1877 when Maximilian Berlitz devised his revolutionary method of language learning. More than 130 years later, Berlitz is a household name, famed not only for language schools but also as a provider of best-selling language and travel guides.

      Our wide-ranging travel products – printed travel guides and phrase books, as well as apps and ebooks – offer all the information you need for a perfect trip, and are regularly updated by our team of expert local authors. Their practical emphasis means they are perfect for use on the ground. Wherever you’re going – whether it’s on a short break, the trip of a lifetime, a cruise or a business trip – we offer the ideal guide for your needs.

      Our Berlitz Pocket Guides are the perfect choice if you need reliable, concise information in a handy format. We provide amazing value for money – these guides may be small, but they are packed with information. No wonder they have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

      © 2017 Apa Digital (CH) AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

      Table of Contents

      Italy’s Top 10 Attractions

      Top Attraction #1

      Top Attraction #2

      Top Attraction #3

      Top Attraction #4

      Top Attraction #5

      Top Attraction #6

      Top Attraction #7

      Top Attraction #8

      Top Attraction #9

      Top Attraction #10

      A Perfect Day In Rome

      Introduction

      A Nation of Actors

      The Lay of the Land

      A Diverse People

      A Brief History

      Etruscans and Greeks

      The Romans

      Christian Beginnings

      After the Empire

      The Holy Roman Empire

      The Middle Ages

      The Guelfs and the Ghibellines

      Francis of Assisi

      The City-States

      The High Renaissance

      Counter-Reformation

      Towards Nationhood

      Napoleon’s ‘Liberation’

      The Risorgimento

      The Modern Era

      The Rise of Fascism

      Post-War Recovery and the 21st Century

      The Rise and Fall of Silvio Berlusconi

      Historical Landmarks

      Where To Go

      Getting Around

      Rome and Lazio

      Classical Rome

      The Roman Forum

      The Palatine Hill

      The Colosseum

      South Towards the Via Appia

      Streets and Squares

      Piazza di Spagna

      Piazza del Popolo

      Pincio Gardens and Villa Borghese

      Around the Trevi Fountain

      Three Churches

      Piazza Venezia

      The Capitoline Hill

      Pantheon and Piazza Navona

      Campo de’Fiori and the Jewish Ghetto

      Trastevere

      The Vatican

      St Peter’s

      Vatican Treasures

      The Sistine Chapel

      Excursion to Tivoli

      Alban Hills and Castel Gandolfo

      Northern Lazio

      Tuscany and Umbria

      Florence (Firenze)

      From the Duomo to Piazza San Marco

      The Medici Palace

      Fra Angelico Museum

      Piazza della Signoria to Piazza Santa Croce

      The Uffizi

      Northern European Rooms

      Santa Croce

      The First Town Hall

      From the Mercato Nuovo to Santa Maria Novella

      South of the Arno

      Boboli Gardens

      Around Tuscany (Toscana)

      Fiesole

      Pisa

      Lucca

      Chianti

      San Gimignano

      Volterra

      Siena

      Montepulciano and Monte Argentario

      Umbria

      Orvieto

      Spoleto

      Assisi

      The Historic Town

      Perugia

      Gubbio

      The Northeast

      Venice (Venezia)

      Grand Canal (Canal Grande)

      Around Piazza San Marco

      The Church of Gold

      The Doge’s Palace

      The Bridge of Sighs and the Prisons

      Around the Accademia

      Peggy Guggenheim Collection

      The Scuole of Venice

      Around the Rialto

      Santi Giovanni e Paolo

      Jewish Ghetto

      The Islands

      The Veneto: the Venetian Mainland

      The Brenta Canal

      Padua (Padova)

      Vicenza

      Verona

      The Dolomites

      Bolzano (Bozen)

      Cortina d’Ampezzo

      Emilia-Romagna

      Rimini

      Ravenna

      Bologna

      Ferrara

      Parma

      The Northwest

      Milan

      Around Castello Sforzesco

      The Last Supper

      The Brera and Other Museums

      Around Lombardy

      Pavia

      Bergamo

      The Lake District

      Lake Garda (Lago di Garda)

      Lake Como (Lago di Como)

      Lake Maggiore

      Piedmont (Piemonte)

      Turin (Torino)

      The Turin Shroud

      Alpine Mountains and the Valle d’Aosta

      Italian Riviera

      Genoa (Genova)

      Riviera di Levante

      Riviera di Ponente

      The South

      Naples (Nápoli)

      The Port and Spaccanapoli

      Santa Chiara

      Archaeological Museum

      The Capodimonte Museum

      Vomero and Posillipo

      Campania

      Capri

      Ischia

      Pompeii

      Pompeii’s Finest Villas

      Vesuvius (Vesuvio)

      Herculaneum (Ercolano)

      Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast

      Ravello

      Paestum

      Puglia

      Gargano Peninsula

      Alberobello

      Sicily and Sardinia

      Sicily (Sicilia)

      Palermo

      Monreale

      Agrigento

      Taormina

      Syracuse (Siracusa)

      Famous Greek Links

      Mount Etna

      Sardinia (Sardegna)

      Cagliari

      Costa Smeralda

      Alghero

      What To Do

      Sports

      Entertainment

      Shopping

      Shopping in Rome

      Shopping in Florence

      Shopping in Venice

      Shopping in Milan

      Festivals

      Eating Out

      Where to Eat

      What to Eat

      Pasta

      Main Courses

      Desserts

      Regional Specialities

      In the South

      Wines

      Reading the Menu

      To Help you Order

      Menu Reader

      A–Z Travel Tips

      A

      Accommodation (See also Camping, Youth Hostels)

      Airports

      B

      Bicycle Hire

      Budgeting for your Trip

      C

      Camping

      Car Hire (See also Driving)

      Climate

      Clothing

      Crime and Safety

      D

      Driving

      Disabled Travellers

      E

      Electricity

      Embassies and Consulates

      Emergencies

      G

      Gay and Lesbian Travellers

      Getting to Italy

      Guides and Tours

      H

      Health and Medical Care

      Holidays

      L

      Language

      M

      Maps

      Media

      Money

      O

      Opening Times

      P

      Police

      Post Offices

      Public Transport

      R

      Religion

      S

      Spas

      T

      Telephones

      Time Zones

      Tipping

      Toilets

      Tourist Information Offices

      V

      Visas and Entry Requirements

      W

      Websites and Internet Access

      Weights and Measures

      Y

      Youth and Student Hostels

      Italy’s Top 10 Attractions

      Top Attraction #1

      iStock

      Siena

      Piazza del Campo is the gorgeous main square of this perfect town. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #2

      Shutterstock

      The Lake District

      The ravishing lake and mountain scenery is irresistible. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #3

      iStock

      The Colosseum, Rome

      Dating from AD72, it symbolises the city’s power and eternity. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #4

      Getty Images

      Tuscany

      Cypresses, sunflowers, hill towns and much more. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #5

      Greg Gladman/Apa Publications

      Pompeii

      Walk the streets of this beautifully preserved Roman town. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #6

      iStock

      Portofino

      The jewel of the Italian Riviera. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #7

      iStock

      The Grand Canal, Venice

      This magical highway winds past waterside palaces to Piazza San Marco. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #8

      Ming Tang-Evans/Apa Publications

      The Sistine Chapel, Rome

      Michelangelo’s masterful ceiling frescoes in the Vatican are a visual and spiritual feast. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #9

      iStock

      The Duomo, Florence

      A perfect symbol of the premier city of arts. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #10

      iStock

      Greek temples, Paestum

      Magnificent legacy of Italy’s Greek colonies. For more information, click here.

      A Perfect Day In Rome

      9.00am

      Breakfast

      Start your day in Trastevere at Caffè delle Arance (Piazza Santa Maria 2) where, along with espresso and cornettos, the house speciality is freshly squeezed orange juice (served with ice cubes on the side) and great people-watching right on the piazza.

      10.00am

      Views from the Janiculum Hill

      Take Via Garibaldi to Piazzale Garibaldi at the top of Janiculum Hill for splendid views of the city and the dome of St Peter’s. On your way up, veer off towards San Pietro in Montorio church for a peek at Bramante’s Tempietto.

      11.30am

      Galleries

      Head down through Trastevere’s winding streets towards Piazza Trilussa and the Tiber, checking out the boutiques and galleries.

      12.30pm

      Across the Tiber

      Cross pedestrian Ponte Sisto and go straight up Via Pettinari. Turn left on Via dei Giubbonari for great shopping and stop for lunch or snacks right on Campo de Fiori, where the city’s most picturesque market is still held.

      1.30pm

      Piazza Navona

      Cross busy traffic-filled Corso Vittorio Emanuele and take Corso Rinascimento. To the left is the sprawling Piazza Navona. Check out Bernini’s fountain in the centre and grab a classy, if pricey espresso, or better still, the dark chocolate ice cream tartufo at bar Tre Scalini (www.trescalini.it).

      2.15pm

      Pantheon

      To the right of Corso Rinascimento on the parallel Via Di S. Giovanna D’Arco, you will find the San Luigi dei Francesi church at no. 5. Inside are three of Caravaggio’s most famous paintings, including The Calling of St Matthew. Take Via del Seminario and you will reach the Pantheon.

      3.00pm

      Spanish Steps and beyond

      Walk east along the narrow Via dei Pastini and follow the shopping streets Via del Corso and Via Condotti to Piazza di Spagna. Give your credit cards a break at the Keats-Shelley House at the base of the Spanish Steps, then head down Via del Babuino to the sculptor Canova’s old studio at no.150, which has been transformed into a caffè (www.canovatadolini.com) with marble masterpieces at every corner.

      5.30pm

      Art in the park

      Walk through Villa Borghese Park and check out the Carlo Bilotti Modern Art Collection (http://en.museocarlobilotti.it).

      7.30pm

      Dinner

      Catch bus 61 and get off at the last stop inside the park. Cross under the arch and into Via Veneto. Dine at the excellent restaurant inside the Hotel Majestic for unforgettable traditional Italian cuisine; be sure to book a table on the patio in good weather.

      10.30pm

      Trendy bar

      Walk up the street for fancy drinks at Doney (www.restaurantdoney.com), which is as posh and popular with today’s cool set as it was at the time of la dolce vita.

      Introduction

      From the Alps down to the southern tip of Sicily, Italy provides the most tangible proof that the world is indeed a wondrous stage. Architects and sculptors treat the myriad parks and gardens as set designs, and nature turns the landscapes – replete with statuesque cypresses, tortuous olive and fig trees, and rows of vineyards – into so many artful backdrops for the daily brio and histrionics of La Vita Italiana.

      In the cities, the cathedrals, palazzi, monumental public buildings and open-air piazzas, are planned as if harmonious elements in unrivalled stage sets. Venice’s dazzling basilica, the Doge’s Palace and the 500-year-old Clock Tower, all within the sprawling Piazza San Marco and adjacent Piazzetta, are the focus of the city’s life. The same is true of Rome’s grand squares – Navona, del Popolo and di Spagna, Siena’s unique Campo, and Florence’s elegant Piazza della Signoria. Conceived as a theatre and emphasising the decorative space as much as the buildings surrounding it, the piazza satisfies the Mediterranean desire to conduct life in the open air.

      A Nation of Actors

      We must not overlook the players. In each town, at that magic moment of the passeggiata at the end of each afternoon, they stroll across the piazza, find themselves a well-placed seat at their favourite caffè, or stand in groups to argue business, politics or football. Their celebrated gift for gesticulation aids the inherent air of drama that reassures Italians of the appreciation of their audience – no people more joyfully live up to their legendary image than the Italians. As Orson Welles put it, all 60-odd million of them are actors, with only a few bad ones, and those, he added most unfairly, are found on the stage and in films.

      Watch them at the wheel of a car: long ago, driving became a major opportunity for the Italians to display their dramatic talents. An Italian designer observed that a nation’s cars are like its people: Scandinavian and German models are solid, strong and reliable, built to resist an accident; Italian cars tend to be more fragile, but slick and spirited, built to avoid an accident. They are designed, above all, to indulge the national sense of style. The imaginative flair of a Neapolitan taxi driver zig-zagging out of a traffic jam forces the admiration of any nerve-shattered back-seat passenger.

      The world also reveres Italian cuisine. In the simplest trattoria or most elegant of restaurants, the experience often begins before you sit down. Not with the menu, but with the artistically presented display across a long table as you enter: seafood antipasti, stuffed aubergines and courgettes, grilled peppers in red, yellow and green, and whatever bounty that morning’s market yielded.

      One of Gucci’s Rome stores

      Ming Tang-Evans/Apa Publications

      The Lay of the Land

      If you take a train the length of the peninsula, Italy offers a constantly changing mosaic of landscapes. In the north, the snow-capped Alps and jagged pink pinnacles of the Dolomites; the gleaming Alpine-backed lakes of Como, Garda and Maggiore; the fertile and industrial plain of the Po, stretching from Turin and Milan across to ancient Verona; the Palladian villa-studded hills of Vicenza, and the romantic canals of Venice.

      On the northwest coast, the Italian Riviera curves from Ventimiglia on the French border to La Spezia, with venerable Genoa in the centre. Behind the alternating rocky and sandy coastline, from the marble quarries of Carrara, the mountain chain of the Apennines reaches south into Tuscany. Here you will find the ageless beauties of Florence, Lucca, Pisa and Siena, not to mention the smaller, and perhaps more magical, hillside towns of Montepulciano, San Gimignano and Volterra.

      Il mare or la montagna – the Italians’ choice for summer

      Neil Buchan-Grant/Apa Publications

      Landlocked Umbria’s rich green countryside surrounds a golden triangle of historic cities: the Assisi of St Francis, the noble university hillside town of Perugia and the medieval mountain post of Gubbio. To the east, the grand Byzantine citadel of Ravenna dominates the seaside resorts lining the Adriatic.

      The Eternal City, Rome, lies halfway down the west coast. For more than 26 centuries it has witnessed countless declines, falls and rebirths, and today continues to resist the assaults of brutal modernity in its time-locked, colour-rich historical centre.

      The exhilarating chaos of Naples commands its magnificent bay, the visible isles of Ischia and Capri, and the ruins of Pompeii in the shadow of Vesuvius, its still active volcano. To the south, the former fishing villages of Sorrento and Positano spill down the craggy cliffs of the serpentine Amalfi coast, justifiably famed as one of the world’s most beautiful drives. On the other side of the peninsula, off the tourist track in the peninsula’s ‘heel’, are the curiously romantic landscapes of Puglia, featuring its centuries-old trulli constructions (for more information, click here) and medieval fortresses of the German emperors.

      People vs State

      The Italian people have long held a deep mistrust for the State. A popular saying, fatta la legge, trovato l’inganno (a law is passed, a way past is found), has now become a national motto.

      Italy’s western approaches are guarded by two of the Mediterranean’s largest islands, Sardinia and Sicily; both rugged, mysterious and steeped in history. Smaller islands with fabled names such as Elba, Lípari and Stromboli, fill in the necklace of floating gems, many reached only by boat, where the lifestyle is often that of the Mediterranean one hundred years ago.

      A Diverse People

      The Italian people – with Latins and Etruscans mixing over the millennia with Greeks, Lombards, Normans, French and Spaniards – are as fascinatingly diverse as the panoply of landscapes. The country was historically divided into the city-states, duchies, kingdoms and republics of Florence, Naples, Venice, Lombardy, Piedmont and Sicily. Today, each region still sustains a solid and pugnacious local pride. Nurtured within the geographical separations of the Alps, the Po valley and the coasts on either side of the Apennines, it was this very diversity that created the richness of Italian art and its competing regional schools of painting and architecture. Significantly, the move towards national unity in the 19th century coincided with a dramatic artistic decline, from which the country is only now recovering.

      Given its comparatively short history as a unified nation, much of Italy’s patriotic sense seems to be most visible in the national football team. After the devastating experience of Mussolini’s Fascism, national government is rarely regarded as an obvious solution to the population’s daily problems. If some form of government proves necessary, Italians prefer the local town hall to the parliament in Rome.

      Most Italians are naturally cheerful and friendly towards foreign visitors, reserving their scorn for each other – Venetians and Romans or Milanese and Neapolitans have a strong regional identity and rivalry. They bemoan the EU-imposed automobile licence plates that no longer designate the origin of the driver.

      Life on the lakes

      iStock

      Beyond the country’s regional identifications, Italy remains strongly divided culturally, economically and psychologically between the prosperous, industrial North and the less developed South, or Mezzogiorno (Midday). This division was perpetuated by centuries of feudal rule in ‘The Two Kingdoms’ of Naples and Sicily, while the North, closer to the rest of Europe, developed more progressive forms of economy and government. The division has come almost to the point of regarding the South as Italy’s own Third World, and has only worsened with the recent recession.

      However, the warm-hearted, high-spirited Neapolitans in no way feel themselves inferior to the cool, pragmatic ‘managerial’ types of

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