Best Tuscany Travel

Take in a gondolier's sweet song while gliding past Venetian palaces, sample olives and wines as you traverse Tuscany's storybook hills, or be humbled amid thousands of years of Roman history and art; all with your trusted travel companion. Full-colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - including history, art, literature, cinema, music, architecture, politics, cuisine, wine, customs Free, convenient pull-out Rome map (included in print version), plus over 137 colour maps Covers Rome, Turin, Piedmont, the Italian Riviera, Milan, the Lakes, Dolomites, Venice, Emilia-Romagna, Florence, Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Naples, Campania, Puglia, Sicily, Sardinia and more. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Garwood has a history degree from York University.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Excellent preparation for my trip touring Italy."
"After reading the first 30 pages on my iPad, it is frustrating to see that some images are missing and format of the pages is "glitched"."
"The perfect book for a visit to Italy."
"I was traveling mostly off the beaten path and I should have known that this is much more tailored to the sheer volumes of touristy (and amazing) places to see."
"Lonely Planet books are the best!"
"While I do enjoy the Fodor’s travel guides for its use of color throughout, while photography of a region is nice to have, for travel guides, it all comes down to detailed information and I will can easily say that “Lonely Planet Italy” is well-researched, informative and a travel guide worth using and help in planning and preparing for your trip to the country. I do want to mention that the city map included is only for Rome, Lonely Planet offers more books of Italy such as "Make My Day Rome", a guide to Sicily, Pocket Venice and more. Overall, "Lonely Planet Discovery Italy" is full of information, is well-researched and updated to include the latest information for traveling to the country for 2016."
"The second stop in the guidebook is about Florence with information about Duomo; Galleria Dell' Accademia; Galleria Degli Uffizi and a walking tour to the heart of the city. The third stop in the guidebook is about Tuscany with information about Towers of San Gimigano, Siena, and a driving tour through Tuscany. The fourth stop in the guidebook is Cinque Terre with information about walking in the Cinque Terre; Sentiero Azzurro; Monterosso; Vernazza, Corniglia; Manarola; and Riomaggiore. The fifth stop in the guidebook is Assisi. The sixth stop in the guidebook is Venice with information about the Grand Canal; Basilica Di San Marco; Palazzo Ducale; Galleria Dell'Accademia; and the Venetian Islands. The final stop in the guidebook is Sicily with information about Mount Etna, Valley of the Temples, Palermo, Catania and Syracuse."

Finally realizing a long-held desire to learn first-hand the experience of restaurant cooking, Buford soon finds himself drowning in improperly cubed carrots and scalding pasta water on his quest to learn the tricks of the trade. Anthony Bourdain is host of the Discovery Channel's No Reservations , executive chef at Les Halles in Manhattan, and author of the bestselling and groundbreaking Kitchen Confidential , Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook , A Cook's Tour , Bone in the Throat , and many others. That he chooses to do so primarily in the notoriously difficult, cramped kitchens of New York's three star Babbo provides further sado-masochistic fun. Thirdly, Heat reveals a dead-on understanding--rare among non-chef writers--of the pleasures of "making" food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenelin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. It's going right in between Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and Zola's The Belly of Paris on my bookshelf. Writing about his break from working as a New Yorker editor and learning firsthand about the world of food, Buford guns his reading into hyperspeed when he is jazzed about a particularly tangy anecdote, and plays with his vocal tone and pitch when mimicking others' voices. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Not just about professional restaurant cooking, but a deep exploration of food culture."
"I re-read this every few years and always enjoy it and learn something new, Ciao!"
"An insider's obsession with the preparation-and enjoyment-of Italian cuisine leads him on a quest to emulate and ultimately surpass his muse, Mario Batali."
"Note: This is the first book I read on my Kindle - some observations: - I liked being able to download the sample (roughly the first chapter) to decide if I wanted to pay for the whole book. - Once I finished the sample it was just a press of a button to get the full book - but I had to find my place again - there was no synchronisation of the last read page of the sample to the full-lenght book. - The Kindle is easy to hold, but the page turn button should be positioned higher up the side of the device to allow holding and paging to be done with a single hand more easily. - I had difficulty going back to find a previously read passage the way I would with a paper book - with a paper book you remember more or less where the text was on the page, and what preceded it."

Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. * Geographical Magazine * This is a traveller's tale at its infectious and informative best; vividly remembered and beautifully written * Church Times * A tremendous journey ... and he's fabulous company * Manchester Evening News * Every page of this book is distinguished by an image, a metaphor, a flash of humour always original and sometimes as incisive as a laser beam. Architecture, art, genealogy, quirks of history and language are all devoured - and here passed on - with a gusto uniquely his * Colin Thubron, Sunday Telegraph * A treasure chest of descriptive writing * Spectator * Nothing short of a masterpiece * Jan Morris * [Fermor's] gloriously ornate account of that epic journey is a classic of what we might call the 'literature of the leg' * Robert Macfarlane, Waitrose Weekend * In December 1933, at the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) walked across Europe, reaching Constantinople in early 1935.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Eve though Leigh Fermor begins by explaining that he was thrown out of several schools before giving up on formal education, he had an impressive command of history, art, geography, classical literature and the English language."
"Compared with all other travel essayists with whom I'm familiar, Fermor is notable for the lens through which he observes his foreign surroundings, i.e. a knowledge of the classics acquired from an English public school's liberal education. Concave and convex uncoil and pursue each other across the pilasters in ferny arabesques, liquid notions ripple, waterfalls running silver and blue drop to lintels and hang frozen there in curtains of artificial icicles. Light is distributed operatically and skies open in a new change of gravity that has lifted wingless saints and evangelists on journeys of aspiration towards three-dimensional sunbursts and left them levitated there, floating among cornices and spandrels and acanthus leaves and architectural ribands crinkled still with pleats from lying long folded kin bandboxes." Sinuous and beautiful fortune-tellers, stagily coifed and ear-ringed and flounced in tiers of yellow and magenta and apple-green, perfunctorily shuffled their cards and proffered them in dog-eared fans as they strolled through the crowds, laying soft-voiced and unrelenting siege to every stranger they met. Sinking flush with the landscape, the town quickly fell to pieces and gave way to an ambiguous fringe of huts and wagons and fires and winter flies where a tangle of brown children scampered and wrestled in the mud among the skirmishing and coupling dogs."
"He walks through Germany, among others, and finds many of its people are cultivated and kind and generous. But as a travel writer and memoirist, he cannot be surpassed."
"Language so rich you want to read it aloud savoring the words and the vision they create."
Best Sicily Travel

Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites us back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food, there and throughout Italy. As Mayes rediscovers her taste for la dolce vita, she embarks on a journey of cultural awakening and embraces a newfound romance with the Italian language and people. Mayes is as generous a cook as she is a writer, flavoring her story with tasty descriptions of local gustatory delights--many of which are included in a small recipe book.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The author’s writing style and ability to capture the nuances in everyday life had me traveling alongside her with every step she took, feeling the hot breezes and tasting the tomatoes."
"Having traveled in that area several times I enjoyed her vivid descriptions of the landscape, food and towns and cities."
"Love that Frances Mayes...she writes the perfect memoir."
"Mayes' series on Italy is very enjoyable."
"I had read Bella Tuscany the year before and had to have my own. copy."
"She writes in detail about ancient buildings, people, food, flowers, thoughts, geography it's endless."
"This book was wordy and wandered aimlessly."
Best Milan Travel

Take in a gondolier's sweet song while gliding past Venetian palaces, sample olives and wines as you traverse Tuscany's storybook hills, or be humbled amid thousands of years of Roman history and art; all with your trusted travel companion. Full-colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - including history, art, literature, cinema, music, architecture, politics, cuisine, wine, customs Free, convenient pull-out Rome map (included in print version), plus over 137 colour maps Covers Rome, Turin, Piedmont, the Italian Riviera, Milan, the Lakes, Dolomites, Venice, Emilia-Romagna, Florence, Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Naples, Campania, Puglia, Sicily, Sardinia and more. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Garwood has a history degree from York University.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Excellent preparation for my trip touring Italy."
"After reading the first 30 pages on my iPad, it is frustrating to see that some images are missing and format of the pages is "glitched"."
"The perfect book for a visit to Italy."
"I was traveling mostly off the beaten path and I should have known that this is much more tailored to the sheer volumes of touristy (and amazing) places to see."
"Lonely Planet books are the best!"
"This book was completely disorganized and so hard to follow."
"Ordered in error."
Best Rome Travel

Take in a gondolier's sweet song while gliding past Venetian palaces, sample olives and wines as you traverse Tuscany's storybook hills, or be humbled amid thousands of years of Roman history and art; all with your trusted travel companion. Full-colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - including history, art, literature, cinema, music, architecture, politics, cuisine, wine, customs Free, convenient pull-out Rome map (included in print version), plus over 137 colour maps Covers Rome, Turin, Piedmont, the Italian Riviera, Milan, the Lakes, Dolomites, Venice, Emilia-Romagna, Florence, Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Naples, Campania, Puglia, Sicily, Sardinia and more. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Garwood has a history degree from York University.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Excellent preparation for my trip touring Italy."
"After reading the first 30 pages on my iPad, it is frustrating to see that some images are missing and format of the pages is "glitched"."
"The perfect book for a visit to Italy."
"I was traveling mostly off the beaten path and I should have known that this is much more tailored to the sheer volumes of touristy (and amazing) places to see."
"Lonely Planet books are the best!"
"This book was completely disorganized and so hard to follow."
"Ordered in error."
Best Venice Travel

“This is history on a grand scale, with a sweep and ambition that is rare… A proper historical epic of dazzling range and achievement.” —William Dalrymple, The Guardian The epic history of the crossroads of the world—the meeting place of East and West and the birthplace of civilization It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions. For Frankopan, the brutish West owes its more enlightened traditions to the lands east of Italy and west of China, which were, for centuries, 'the centre of the world'… Frankopan marshals diverse examples to demonstrate the interconnectedness of cultures, showing in vivid detail the economic and social impact of the silk and the slave trades, the Black Death, and the Buddhist influence on Christianity.”. — The New Yorker “In his new book, The Silk Roads , Frankopan has created something that forces us to sit up and reconsider the world and the way we've always thought about it… The book takes us by surprise right from the start.”. —Nishant Dahiya, NPR “This is deeply researched popular history at its most invigorating, primed to dislodge routine preconceptions and to pour in other light. “One of Mr. Frankopan’s gifts as a storyteller is his ability to draw unusual connections across his vast canvas… [he] packs his tale with fascinating trivia… Frankopan has written a rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world.”. —Sadanand Dhume, The Wall Street Journal “Frankopan casts his net widely in this work of dizzying breadth and ambition… Those opening to any page will find fascinating insights that illuminate elusive connections across time and place… Frankopan approaches his craft with an acerbic wit, and his epochal perspective throws the foibles of the modern age into sharp relief”. — Publishers Weekly (starred review). “A glorious read. “In his new book, The Silk Roads , Frankopan has created something that forces us to sit up and reconsider the world and the way we've always thought about it… The book takes us by surprise right from the start.”. —Nishant Dahiya, NPR. “Superb… Peter Frankopan is an exceptional storyteller… The lands of the Silk Roads are of renewed importance, and Frankopan’s book will be indispensable to anyone who wants to make sense of this union of past and present.”. —Philip Seib, The Dallas Morning News. “This is, to put it mildly, an ambitious book… By spinning all these stories into a single thread, Peter Frankopan attempts something bold: A history of the world that shunts the centre of gravity eastward… Mr. Frankopan writes with clarity and memorable detail… Where other histories put the Mediterranean at the centre of the story, under Mr. Frankopan it is important as the western end of a transcontinental trade with Asia in silks, spices, slaves—and ideas.”. — The Economist. “It’s time we recognized the importance of the East to our history, insists this magnificent study… The breadth and ambition of this swashbuckling history by Peter Frankopan should come as no surprise… A book that roves as widely as the geography it describes, encompassing worlds as far removed as those of Herodotus and Saddam Hussein, Hammurabi and Hitler… It is a tribute to Frankopan’s scholarship and mastery of sources in multiple languages that he is as sure-footed on the ancient world as he is on the medieval and modern… Deftly constructed… The Silk Roads is a powerful corrective to parochialism.”. —Justin Marozzi, The Sunday Times (U.K.). Frankopan upends the usual world-history narrative oriented around ancient Rome and Greece and the irrepressible rise of Europe… In a series of brisk chapters—The Road of Faiths, The Road of Furs and so on—studded with state-of-the-art research that is sourced from at least a dozen languages, the author brings wondrous history to vivid life… In The Silk Roads, Peter Frankopan has provided a bracing wake up call.”. —Matthew Price, The National (AE).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Schools teach its students of the Roman Empire, the subsequent Dark Ages, the Norman conquest in 1066, Henry VIII and the Tudors, the American War of Independence, the Industrial Revolution and the First and Second World Wars. As the author states: “For centuries before the early modern era, the intellectual centres of excellence of the world, the Oxfords ad Cambridges, the Harvards and Yales, were not located in Europe or the west, but in Baghdad, and Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand”. We are seeing the signs of the world’s centre of gravity shifting – back to where it lay for millennia”."
"The author's depth of knowledge and resource access, coupled with his polyglot skills, weave a centuries long tale of intrigue across a region of the world little known or travelled today. The story of the European debacle of the same time is repeatedly narrated, engrossing the reader in its internecine religious wars. Piles of skulls and cities entirely wiped off the face of the earth are ignored in favor of the administrative advantages of Mongol rule. Information is 'quickly transmitted' across the sands, mountains and rivers - this when 30 miles a day was the fastest a horse or man could travel. Other books in the vein of Central Asia would include The Poison King, Balthazar's Odyssey, The Ornament of the World, The Emergence of Modern Islam, Chasing the Sea, The Shied of Achilles and best, Millennium by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. The ridicule of Western advances coupled to dictatorial domination and horrific tortures could just as easily describe Islamic, Indian, Chinese or Russian worlds. As for his Palestinian views, well, they are biased, leave it at that... Can't wait to enjoy My Fair Lady, his Mediterranean yacht for charter..."
"I had assumed we would be learning about the history of the silk roads and the many dynasties that rose and fell along the route - the Songdians, the cities of the Tamir Basin for example. I thought this would be an Asian centric book showing the silk roads impact on Han Dynasty China and the steps that had to be taken to keep the route secure. Or perhaps how the silk road brought Buddhism to the west and mixed the artistic sense of the descendants of Alexander's army with the Central Asian Buddhist cave dwellers."
Best Florence Travel

Take in a gondolier's sweet song while gliding past Venetian palaces, sample olives and wines as you traverse Tuscany's storybook hills, or be humbled amid thousands of years of Roman history and art; all with your trusted travel companion. Full-colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - including history, art, literature, cinema, music, architecture, politics, cuisine, wine, customs Free, convenient pull-out Rome map (included in print version), plus over 137 colour maps Covers Rome, Turin, Piedmont, the Italian Riviera, Milan, the Lakes, Dolomites, Venice, Emilia-Romagna, Florence, Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Naples, Campania, Puglia, Sicily, Sardinia and more. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Garwood has a history degree from York University.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Excellent preparation for my trip touring Italy."
"After reading the first 30 pages on my iPad, it is frustrating to see that some images are missing and format of the pages is "glitched"."
"The perfect book for a visit to Italy."
"I was traveling mostly off the beaten path and I should have known that this is much more tailored to the sheer volumes of touristy (and amazing) places to see."
"Lonely Planet books are the best!"
"This book was completely disorganized and so hard to follow."
"Ordered in error."