| Before you leave, it may be worth calling the Italian State Tourist
Office (ENIT, www.enit.it ) for a selection of maps and brochures,
though you'll have to be persistent to get through on the phone and bear
in mind that nearly all of the same bumph can easily be picked up in
Italy.
Useful internet addresses
Italian Web sites have proliferated in recent years and provide a wealth
of information; we've listed a few of the more useful ones here. For the
Internet addresses of the major travel and accommodation organizations,
see the relevant sections.
Football www.football.it League tables, news and links.
In Italy www.initaly.com Travel tips, campsites, services and etiquette.
Italian Ministry for Arts and the Environment www.beniculturali.it
Museums, temporary exhibitions, performances and so on - in Italian
language only.
Italian State Railways (FS) www.fs-on-line.com Timetable information in
Italian and English.
Italian Yellow Pages www.paginegialle.it Online phone book.
Italian National Parks www.parks.it Contacts and wildlife information.
Italytour 68 www.italytour.com Shopping, fashion, trains and hotels.
Museums www.museionline.it Links to museums and exhibition sites, dates,
events.
Opera www.operabase.com Listings and contact details for the country's
major venues.
Venere www.venere.it Probably the best site for accessing the Web pages
of those hotels that have them - and booking rooms online.
Weather www.meteo.it Forecasts - in Italian, but with self-explanatory
symbols.
Tourist offices
Most Italian towns and main city train stations and airports have a
tourist office , usually known as an APT ( Azienda per Il Turismo ) or
just ufficio turistico , and signposted by the standard "i" symbol. Note
that not all places with the symbol are impartial information offices,
however, and that not all information offices are called APTs; there are
any number of acronyms, including EPT ( Ente Provinciale per il Turismo
); IAT ( Ufficio di Informazione e Accoglienza Turistica ); and AAST (
Azienda Autónoma di Soggiorno e Turismo , a smaller local outfit). When
there isn't one of any of these, there will sometimes be a Pro Loco
office, usually run by businesses in smaller villages, which will have
much the same kind of information but generally keep much shorter hours.
All of these vary in degrees of usefulness, and apart from the main
cities and tourist areas the staff aren't likely to speak English. But
you should always be able at least to get a free town plan, a list of
accommodation and a local listings booklet in Italian, and some will
reserve you a room and sell places on guided tours.
Opening hours vary, but larger city and resort offices are likely to be
open Monday to Saturday 9am to 1pm and 4 to 7pm, and sometimes for a
short period on Sunday mornings; smaller offices may open weekdays only,
while Pro Loco times are notoriously erratic - some open for only a
couple of hours a day, even in summer. If the tourist office isn't open
and all else fails, the local telephone office, most hotels, and bars
with phones should all have a copy of the local Tuttocittà (a supplement
to the main telephone directories), which carries listings and phone
numbers of essential services, adverts for restaurants and shops,
together with indexed maps of the appropriate city.
Italian state tourist offices abroad
Note: ENIT is on the Web at www.enit.it
Australia : contact the consulate, Level 45, 1 Macquarie Place, Sydney
2000, NSW (tel 02/9392 7900).
Canada : 1 Place Ville Marie, Suite 1914, Montréal, Québec H3B 2C3 (tel
514/866-7667); 175 Bloor St East, Suite 907, South Tower, Toronto, ON
M4W 3R8 (tel 416/925-4882); www.italiantourism.com .
Ireland : 47 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 (tel 01/766 397).
New Zealand : apply to the embassy, 34 Grant Rd, Thorndon, Wellington (tel
04/473 5339).
UK : 1 Princes St, London W1R 8AY (tel 020/7408 1254). USA : 630 5th
Ave, Suite 1565, New York, NY 10111 (tel 212/245-5618; brochure requests
tel 212/245-4822); 500 North Michigan Ave, Suite 2240, Chicago, IL 60611
(tel 312/644-0996; brochure requests tel 312/644-0990); 12400 Wilshire
Blvd, Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90025 (tel 310/820-1898; brochure
requests tel 310/820-0098); www.italiantourism.com
Maps
The town plans we've printed should be fine for most purposes, and
practically all tourist offices give out maps of their local area for
free. However, if you want an indexed town plan, Studio FMB cover most
towns and cities, and Falk and Touring Club Italiano (TCI) also do
decent plans of the major cities. The clearest and best-value large-scale
commercial road map of Italy is the Michelin 1:1,000,000 one; Michelin
also produce 1:400,000 maps covering the whole of Italy, including
Sicily and Sardinia, which are equally good value. There are also the
1:800,000 and 1:400,000 maps produced by the Touring Club Italiano,
covering north, south and central Italy, although these are a little
more expensive; TCI also produce excellent 1:200,000 maps of the
individual regions, which are indispensable if you are touring a
specific area in depth. Alternatively, the Automobile Club d'Italia
issues a good, free 1:275,000 road map, available from State Tourist
Offices. Local tourist offices also often have road maps of varying
quality to give away.
For hiking you'll need at least a scale of 1:50,000. Studio FMB and the
TCI cover the major mountain areas of northern Italy to this scale, but
for more detailed, down-to-scale 1:25,000 maps, the Istituto Geografico
Centrale series covers central and northwest Italy and the Alps; Kompass
also publish these areas to the same scale. The Apennines and Tuscany
are covered by Multigraphic (Firenze), easiest bought in Italy, while
Tabacco produce a good series detailing the Dolomites and the northeast
of the country. In Italy, the Club Alpino Italiano is a good source of
hiking maps; we've supplied details of branches throughout the Guide.
Bookstores and map outlets
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