National Geographic Traveler: Florence and Tuscany, 3rd Edition Paperback – March 3, 2015

If you're looking for a guide book that lists various sites to look at, other books are better. However, if you are looking for a guide book that tells you what you are looking at, this is the one. This book gives you an a brief introduction to the area's history and culture (which is a must for this region in my humble opinion). It then further explains various areas. My Eyewitness Travel Guide for the same area, was good for learning what's out there. But this book explained those sites with just the right amount of depth. I would venture to say (though I only have the Rome travel book from NGT) acts as a tour guide. Though, I have only read city/area specific books. I'm not certain a NGT country book would be the same. I don't see how it could be.I am an American currently living in Europe. I will purchase many more NGT 'tour' books as I continue to travel.

National Geographic started this series of travel guides a few years back, and, after 16 years of leading student tours to Europe and trying other popular travel publications, I can highly recommend the NG series. The maps are some of the best in this category and I especillay appreciate the way the authors/editors divide cities and countries into easily digestible and fun to use sections. Another plus are the suggested walking tours. If you're heading across the pond, these are the travel guides to invest in.

I LOVED TUSCANY, WE TRAVELED ALL OVER.THE BOOK GIVES DETAILS WERE TO GO ,WHAT TO SEE . IT LACKS ONE SECTION "SINQUE TERREIS WLL WORTH TO SEE BEATIFULL ONTHE SEE, PARK YOUR CAR AND CLIMB ALL AROUND THE CHARMING VILLAGES ,WITH SMALL HOMELIKE RESTETAURANT, AND YUMMY FOOD. TRUE ITALIE.

A very thorough and up to date guidebook with excellent photographs and maps.

Just what I was looking for

This is a good first book if you know you want to visit Florence and Tuscany but don't know what you want to see. It spends about 180 pages on Florence and 100 pages on Tuscany and about 30 pages on hotels, restaurants, and shopping. It provides the type of information that you expect from a travel book - a history of each area, a description of the attractions, maps, and suggestions for hotels and restaurants. What I liked were the "Not to be Missed" hints scattered throughout the book (with all the attractions, I need help deciding what I should see), the "Insider Tips" and other "tips" about attractions and also about being in Italy in general.As you flip through this book, you'll see color photos and illustrations on each set of pages. The front and back covers also have maps - the front cover provides a map of Florence, while the back cover has a map of Tuscany. It's a well-made book - no cheap paper here - this book can withstand someone constantly flipping the pages.

"National Geographic Traveler: Florence and Tuscany, 3rd Edition" is an outstanding guide to Florence and Tuscany. I can say this because I have done just about everything described in the book, and if a friend asked me I would make a lot of the recommendations included in the book myself. It has been said that a travel guide isn't really useful until you have already been to the destination and so know what the content in the guide is really about. It's tough to read a guidebook at home, about a culture or country you have not been to before, and not have your eyes glaze over with facts and figures and histories that may not be meaningful for you until you are there, or you have been there, for context. But having spent a lot of time in Florence, and Tuscany in general, this book really hits all the right points, doesn't waste your time with a lot of filler, and has just the right amount of photos and detail drawings and maps to help you get the best from a visit to Tuscany.Travel books have evolved quite a bit over the past few years, and National Geographic Traveler: Florence and Tuscany is very much a contemporary travel guide in that it understands that people now have access to all kinds of travel information while traveling. For example, a staple feature of travel guides for decades has been restaurant and hotel recommendations. But, in the age of TripAdvisor and other rating and info web sites and apps and with every traveler, it seems, having a smartphone or tablet with them, is it really necessary to use up many pages, and to make a guide bulkier and less portable, to provide information and recommendations that may already be out of date by the time the ink dries? National Geographic Traveler: Florence and Tuscany wisely dispenses with an excess of these sections, although it includes a brief but concise guide to perennial favorites in an appendix at the back of the book. This would have been a minus many years ago, now it's a plus.The book strikes a fine balance between text and illustrations also, with very articulate and instructive explanations about what you need to know without veering off into lecture length presentations. It also avoids one of the great sins of many other recent travel books, in my opinion, which is the use of superficial, pithy adjective laden text and cheerleading. It is well written, has some opinions, but reasonable ones, and is a smooth read. It does not attempt to be your new best friend or to blog past personal feelings and experiences at you. It is well written and, perhaps more importantly, well edited.Likewise the photos and maps are very helpful without becoming the kind of illustration clutter that are one of the big shortcomings of the Eyewitness guides, for example. The walking tours are just right to take you through various parts of Florence. The section on Siena is shorter than the one on Florence but covers what you need to know to make an enjoyable day trip to Siena or to stay there for a day or two while visiting other Tuscan hill towns. The snapshot sections of features and history for Chianti, Lucca, Pisa, San Gimignano, many other hill towns and the coastal areas are just enough and not too much.But, best of all it's all very useful and spot on, and the book is neither too large to carry with you nor so brief as to make you feel you might be missing out on something. If I had never been to Tuscany I would have been enthusiastic about this book just on its design merits, but having been to many of the places described I can say it will be a wonderful companion for your own trip there. RECOMMENDED.

A lovely travel guide to Florence and Tuscany has the gorgeous photographs one expects from a National Geographic publication. It is divided into geographic sections within the region, highlighting both popular and more off the beaten track destinations. There are maps, countryside and city maps, but also diagrams of art galleries and cathedrals. Where I felt the publication fell down somewhat, hence the 4 star instead of 5 star review, was in the final section, which was reserved for hints for travellers, transportation, medical advice, hints for disabled tourists. In my opinion Fodor and some other guides give much more comprehensive advice, and certainly many more hotel and restaurant recommendations. In addition, this book is heavy in a tote bag or backpack, but this is something one comes to expect with travel guides.