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.
