Visitor Information

Tourist Offices

For general information in your home country, try your local branch of the Italian Government Tourist Board (ENIT) or www.italiantourism.com. Some Frommer's readers have reported that the office isn't really that helpful.

In the United States: 630 Fifth Ave., Suite 1565, New York, NY 10111 (tel. 212-245-4822 or 212-245-5618; fax 212-586-9249); 500 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2240, Chicago, IL 60611 (tel. 312-644-0996 or 312/644-0990; fax 312-644-3019); and 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90025 (tel. 310-820-1898 or 310-820-9807; fax 310-820-6357).

In Canada: 175 Bloor St. E., Suite 907, South Tower, Toronto, Ontario M4W 3R8 (tel. 416-925-4882; fax 416-925-4799; enit.canada@on.aibn.com).

In the United Kingdom: 1 Princes St., London W1B 2AY England (tel. 020-7399-3562; italy@italiantouristboard.co.uk).

Maps

For basic navigation around Italy, I rely on country maps from Michelin, which are sometimes available at news kiosks, and almost always sold at Autogrill highway rest stops. They are more than adequate for the average itinerary around northern Italy.

A city street plan is a pianta; a map of a region or larger area is a mappa or carta. Before you leave home, you can pick up one of the Touring Club Italiano's (TCI) enormous pristine maps of Italy's regions at 1:200,000 scale. You can find regional maps ("Lombardia," "Veneto," "Piemonte/Valle d'Aosta," for example) at some bookstores and most map and travel specialty stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. TCI also publishes some pocket-size street maps of cities, Milan among them, and makes laminated, bound map booklets (if you don't like sheets), both regional and collections of city plans.

Edizione Multigraphic covers Italy in varying scales with contour-lined maps so detailed that some actually show individual farms. Their Carta Turistica Stradale 1:50,000 maps are perfect for exploring back roads, while the 1:25,000 Carta dei Sentieri e Rifugi sheets include hiking trails and alpine shelters for those hoofing it or on bike. The maps are widely available at bookstores, newsstands, and souvenir shops. Litografia Artistica Cartografica makes very complete and large foldout city maps with searchable indexes. They also publish 1:150,000 province maps that are less detailed than the Edizione Multigraphic sheets, but because of this, are easier to glance at while driving.

Note that, even with a map, you are going to get lost in Venice (even Venetians get lost repeatedly if they venture outside their own little section of town). Accept this and view it as part of the adventure.

Useful Websites

Websites and e-mail addresses are included throughout this guide for everything from tourist offices, hotels, and restaurants to museums and festivals. The official site for the Venice tourist board is www.turismovenezia.it, which is fairly comprehensive. A private site, www.meetingvenice.it, is funkier and better suited to checking for festivals and events. Turin has an extremely useful site, www.turismotorino.org, as does the province of Trentino-Alto Adige (South Tyrol), at www.hallo.com. These are examples of sites by private companies hired by local government for promotion purposes. In general, to find the site for a province or city, the formula is the same: www.provincia.[province's initials].it, and www.comune.[city's name].it. For example, www.comune.mantova.it is the official site for the municipality of Mantua, and www.provincia.tn.it is the official site of the province of Trent, although bear in mind that these government sites are sometimes in Italian only and more bureaucratically inclined than for tourists. On a final note, you will see a number of listings in this book for the local "APT," which is the city's publicly run pro loco, an organization involved in the promotion of the local area. Keep in mind that APTs are slowly being phased out in Italy in favor of private-public partnerships called IATs, like the ones in Turin and Milan.

Hot Tickets -- For major events where tickets should be procured well before arriving on the spot, check out Box Office at tel. 055-210-804 or www.boxol.it. They will only deliver tickets to an Italian address, but you can buy ahead of time and pick them up at the booth when you arrive.

Getting Your VAT Refund

Most purchases have a built-in value added tax (IVA) of 20%. Non-E.U. (European Union) citizens are entitled to a refund of this tax if they spend more than 154.94€ (before tax) at any one store. To claim your refund, request an invoice from the cashier at the store and take it to the Customs office (dogana) at the airport to have it stamped before you leave. Note: If you're going to another E.U. country before flying home, have it stamped at the airport Customs office of the last E.U. country you'll be visiting (so if flying home via Britain, have your Italian invoices stamped in London).

Once back home, mail the stamped invoice back to the store within 90 days of the purchase, and they'll send you a refund check. Many shops are now part of the "Tax Free for Tourists" network. (Look for the sticker in the window.) Stores participating in this network issue a check along with your invoice at the time of purchase. After you have the invoice stamped at Customs, you can redeem the check for cash directly at the tax-free booth in the airport, or mail it back in the envelope provided within 60 days. For more info, check out www.globalrefund.com.