****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Blue Guides are the perfect companion guide for anyone who wants to learn about what you are looking at and not miss something fabulous that's right next door to your hotel. Other reviewers are correct - Blue Guide is not the most comprehensive when it comes to hotels and restaurants (although there are abbrieviated recommendations) but the detail on art, architecture and history is unsurpassed. There are few if any other guides that will walk you through the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna room by room, telling you what's in each , or guide you though Mantova's Palazzo Ducale with a floor plan and descriptions of every room. For example, this guide has a paragraph about each masterpiece in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice. This detail and attention to just about everything worth seeing is valuable in planning your trip or even in making sure, once you arrive in a city, that you aren't missing anything extraordinary. Once in Italy, reading the Blue Guide information about Mantova caused us to change our plans and visit this wonderful town on the two rivers with it's incredible Palazzo Te, the Camera degli Sposi, Sant' Andrea and other masterworks that we mkight have never found and experienced otherwise. Yeah, because they are so crammed with information, it's a pain to lug them along, but well worth the trouble. Take your Fodor's to help you figure out what hotels to stay in, but then leave it in your suitcase (or give it to a fellow traveler) and carry your Blue Guide for a true educational visit. By the way, the city guides (Rome, Florence, Venice) have excellent city maps that will not only get your around (on foot) but lable nearly all the buildings, churches,and museums you will pass on a morning jaunt around town.
