Central Italy: The Collected Traveler: Tuscany and Umbria (The Collected Traveler) | 
 enlarge | Creator: Barrie Kerper
Publisher: Fodor's
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $1.10
You Save: $14.90 (93%)
New (3) Used (18) Collectible (1) from $1.10
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 732545
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 060980443X
Dewey Decimal Number: 914.5504
EAN: 9780609804438
ASIN: 060980443X
Publication Date: September 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Each edition of this unique series marries a collection of previously published essays with detailed practical information, creating a colorful and deeply absorbing pastiche of opinions and advice. Each book is a valuable resource -- a compass of sorts -- pointing vacationers, business travelers, and readers in many directions. Going abroad with a Collected Traveler edition is like being accompanied by a group of savvy and observant friends who are intimately familiar with your destination.
This edition on central Italy -- tuscany & umbria features:
Distinguished writers, such as Muriel Spark, Gerald Asher, Erica Jong, Jason Epstein, Pope Brock, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, and David Downie, who share seductive pieces about the side roads of Tuscany, wines of Montepulciano, renting houses in Tuscany and Umbria, cooking schools, outdoor markets, and the Festa dei Ceri in Gubbio.
Annotated bibliographies for each section with recommendations for related readings.
An A-Z "informazioni pratiche" (practical information) section covering everything from accommodations, hiking, and pazienza (patience) to the Italian yellow pages.
Whether it's your first trip or your tenth, the Collected Traveler books are indispensable, and meant to be the first volumes you turn to when planning your journeys.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good for browsing, bad for pinpointing May 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have always enjoyed Barrie Kerper's Collected Traveler anthologies, and own three of them. They are the ultimate guidebooks for inveterate readers: rather than names and addresses and prices and museum hours, they contain a wide variety of essays and travel pieces on the place in question. While I certainly wouldn't travel without one of those more specific Fodor's or Eyewitness guidebook, these are priceless for giving the flavor and the feel of the place, as well as providing history and folklore that more practical hand books don't have space for. This particular volume on Central Italy contains, among many others, a really charming essay by William Zinsser on Siena; a wonderful and detailed account by Lis Harris on Siena's annual Palio; and a piece on market day in Cortona by Frances Mayes of Tuscan Sun fame. You don't even have to leave your chair to have a purely enjoyable experience.
My one complaint is that there's no index, and only a ve-e-ery general table of contents, so once you find an article you like, you have to thumb through 600-plus pages to find it again. Where's the piece on garlic bread? Who knows. Why do people say renaissance Florence contributed as much to music as it did to art and science? Can't find it. I don't believe in over-regimentation, but in this case, a little cataloguing would be a very good thing.
 A great compilation! June 19, 2001
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
A guidebook without maps? A guidebook you can curl up and read cover-to-cover? Yes, this is it. As one who has vacationed in Tuscany for a total of 36 weeks in the past 11 years, I found this book not only evocative of fond memories but instructive by pointing me to places, eateries, and certain facts of Italian life of which I was unaware. The early sections covering tipping, car rental, trains, etc. are of particular help to the first time traveler. There's even a little Frances Mayes in there for the 1% of the people interested in Italy who have not read her books on Tuscany. But after reading this book, you'll have to get a map or two anyway...because you'll have booked a flight to bella Italia.
A must for the Italian bookshelf December 27, 2000
35 out of 35 found this review helpful
This is a lovely, evocative book that's also extremely useful and is a necessity for anyone who loves Tuscany and Umbria. A collection of little odds and ends about the area, this is a book to dip into or read from cover to cover. Leaning more heavily toward Tuscany than Umbria and omitting Le Marche (the only reason it didn't get 5 stars from me, because Tuscany has been covered so much already), it covers the major sights as well as hidden treasures, and chapters on the food, the people, and the art of Central Italy are especially fine. Many books include bibliographies, referring readers to other books on Italy, but Kerper's is especially comprehensive. The compiler's love for Italy comes shining through on every page. Nice photos, too! Because it's such a pretty book, this is also a pretty neat gift selection.
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