Venice guidebook reviews
Whenever we travel, we hope to find the perfect guidebook that fits our interests and speaks to us. Unfortunately, those guidebooks are hard to find and rarely exist. In the case of Venice, with literally centuries of guidebooks to choose from, decisions are harder. My advice is to take more than one.
After weeks of wrestling with the guidebooks I brought on my trip to Venice, I have this assessment to pass along. When I get back home and have a chance to take a look at some other guides, I will add them to this list. Note: Some of these books reveiwed here are old editions, however, most of the sightseeing and history information stays the same with updates for new phone numbers, restaurants and hotels. The titles are linked to the latest edition available.
The Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto
This book is a gem. The research and accuracy is amazing. If you want a full guidebook with just about all the sights, history, hotels, restaurants, nightlife and supermarkets, this is the book to buy, carry and use while in this magical city. Kudos to Jonathan Buckley. I even learned about a tiny ostaria only a few blocks from my apartment that was hidden from me and saved by the locals for themselves. The only disappointment (and a real shame, because the publication cost would be the same) is the abysmal map section that has been bound into the back of the book — streets aren’t labeled, 
vaporetto stops aren’t clear and traghetto spots are not included.
Rough Guide Directions
This is a scaled down version of the larger guide. The editors have stripped just enough information from the book to make no better than another short guide out there. It includes no restaurants, “authentic Venice” only means out of the way and once again, the maps, even the smaller neighborhood maps are poor. Thumbs down; way down.
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Michelin Green Guide Venice
This is an excellent overall guide with a comment for just about every tourist sight of interest. But the guide lacks in-depth information about some of the lesser known, but important, churches and buildings. The Scuola Grande dei Carmini gets only eight lines as does San Nicolo dei Mendicoli and the Church of Angelo Rafaele barely gets a mention. San Sebastian gets, appropriately, two stars, but the guide provides a paltry write up that doesn’t even mention the Veronese masterpiece that tells the story of Ester.
About 40 percent of the guide focuses on Venetian art, history, nature and culture. That information is wonderful, but I fear few tourists will spend the time to read it. Michelin Venice is as good an overall guide to the sights of Venice with excellent maps that one can buy.
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Blue Guide Venice
A wonderfully researched book packed with more detailed information about Venice than any other guide. For an in-depth look into the art and architecture in every corner of this city, the Blue Guide can’t be matched. The book is worth every penny for any art aficionado visiting Venice.
The book is packed with so much information that it is not much use for overall planning. But after crossing a few canals and squeezing through a narrow Venetian street and discovering an obscure church with a crumbling brick facade, chances are, the church will be described together with its painting and sculpture treasures in the Blue Guide in detail.
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Rick Steves’ Venice
Rick presents the basic Venice with excellent explanations of the main sights and with good affordable hotel and restaurant recommendations. For the basic tourist, limited by time, this guide allows them to get the most out of a visit.
Rick and his writing partner Gene Openshaw do an exceptional job of providing a historical perspective of the city and its main sights. The walks are a joy and leave one wishing there were more. The guides also have wonderfully entertaining tours through the main churches and museums that will leave any visitor with an appreciation of a bit of art history after reading through Rick and Gene’s descriptions.
The day trip pages for Padua, Verona, Vicenza and Ravenna are well done and useful taking travelers right from the train station in Venice to each city and back home again.
Frommer’s Venice day by day
A slick book with a very useful map included in a pouch attached to the back cover. Unfortunately, that map may be the best thing going for this small guide that glosses over Venice in many ways. There are lots of “bests” that add up to just about useless information. This guidebook is an ambitious effort, but doesn’t quite come together for the user in the end.
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Chow! Venice
Subtitled Savoring the Food and Wine of the La Serenissima, this guide is an ambitious effort to recommend restaurants and bars in Venice. Shannon Essa and Ruth Edenbaum do a good job and visitors won’t go wrong following their advice. One of the nice things about the book is that it encourages tourists to get a bit off the beaten track to find good cooking.
The opening pages of the book provide a wonderful overview of Venetian dining with a summary of the local specialties and a quick lesson on how to eat like an Italian. And at the back of the book the dining glossary translates menu items from both Italian and Venetian dialect into English.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, Venice & the Veneto
This lush guide is the best for dreaming about Venice and making plans on where to go. The phenomenal collection of photographs, drawings and maps provides a delightful exploration of Venice through the pages of the guide. The DK Eyewitness guide also has by far the best outline of the palaces and buildings along the Grand Canal - perfect to use while taking the slow #1 vaporetto from Piazzale Roma to St. Mark’s or further.
However once the overview is finished the guide provides skimpy in-depth information about any of the sites. The great planning use continues for Padua, Verona, Vicenza and other Veneto towns. These guides are prefect for whetting one’s appetite and planning what one wants to do, then use another guidebook for the details.
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Eyewitness Travel Top 10 Venice
This guidebook that forces every aspect of Venice into Top 10s has become popular, however, it is not very practical. The Top 10 approach leaves the book with a scattered approach to the city and in some cases it seems foolish — such as the Top 10 sights on Campo Santa Margherita (They are stretching it here and don’t mention the only two real world-class sights until #3 and #7). In my neighborhood, Dorsoduro, the only eatery I would recommend of their Top 10 is Il Doge Ice Cream. Don’t even thing of using this plan a trip to Venice. Use it after you get here just for curiosity. The fold-out map in the back is useful with street names, vaporetto stops and traghetto locations.
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Cadogan Venice Padua Verona
This guide is packed with history that is woven throughout the sights and neighborhood descriptions. I’m not sure what impact the reign of Ezzolino (the son of Satan), the battles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or the Council of Trent have to do with my touring, however knowing the background of what was happening in Venice is interesting and brings a bit of life to otherwise simply ornate baroque palaces and altars. I can see how Napoleon cut a wide swath through the city, destroying churches, building government buildings and wide streets. He eventually gave the city to the Austrians who gave Venice pigeons as a gift in return; one they would like to give back.
If one is walking through the narrow streets with this guide there is a lush litany of history with few specifics about the sites. (Except St. Marks Basilica where it has a page naming almost every mosaic, chapel and piece of art.) A wonderful “Directory of Artists” provides a capsule review of each master’s period and credentials. Use this guide to add background and historic color to your visit. If you have the time and inclination, it does a brilliant job.
Venice for Kids
This exceptional book is very hard to find outside of Italy, but can be purchased in many stores in Venice and at the Guggenheim Museum Store. Prices vary depending on the store ranging between Euros 12 and Euros 14. The fanciful illustrations, imaginative maps and unusual stories about each of the sights make this a must guide for kids of all ages.
If one puts the simple explanations of the Venice for Kids tour of the Grand Canal together with the illustrated tour found in the DK Eyewitness Guide the combination is hard to beat for architecture and history during the vaporetto ride. This book is the only place I found that explained the reason behing the two entrances to S. Trovaso - one on the canal and another on the campo. The revelation was that gangs that fought on the nearby fighting bridge also lived in the same parish. To avoid conflicts each gang was given their own entrance - the church was a no-fight zone.
The rundown of art within Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari is as good as any that I have read and a lot more fun to read as well. And where else is a tourist going to find out that the new Hilton Molino Stucky hotel used to be one of the most modern pasta factories in Europe and was the first place in Venice to have electricity, even before St. Mark’s? Or, try counting steps up one side of a bridge over a canal and down the other. Often they don’t match because many of the islands are at different levels.
Venice in Context
This guide isn’t generally available in bookstores, however, Amazon has it listed for bargain prices. Though the book didn’t take off on bookstore shelves, it is a concept that was, perhaps, before its time. The nugget of gold within these pages are the two audio CDs that provide 12 different guided tours of various neighborhoods of Venice and important sights. The tours range from about a 20-minute tour of St. Mark’s Square to four minutes explaining the history and art of the gondola. With the advent of the iPod, I have had a chance to use these spoken guides and my only comment is, “I want more.” The explanations are wonderful and the background discussions bring soaring churches to life and will change the way one walks through St. Mark’s forever. Sadly, the book and the two CDs are tough to find, but hopefully, the publisher will eventually set these guided tours up as downloadable files through iTunes. Maybe the time has come.
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