Travellers Calabria, 2nd Edition
If you’re headed to the toe of the boot, you’ll want to have the second edition of Travellers Calabria by Lara Dunston and Terry Carter tucked away in your travel bag. This guidebook gives a solid overview of many aspects of Calabrian culture including archaeology, history, and food, while also offering sightseeing, accommodation, and restaurant tips as well.
In short, it does exactly what a guidebook should — and it’s conveniently only slightly larger than pocket-sized to boot.
The photographs are consistently gorgeous and the text covers much more than the main tourist destinations like Tropea, Gerace, and Reggio Calabria; it also shares some of my favorite even more off-the-beaten stops like Pizzo, Le Castella, and Serra San Bruno.
I especially love the section that lists, by season, which attractions a visitor should enjoy in Calabria; first-time visitors will also appreciate the inclusion of basic information on how to arrive and get around, handle money issues, navigate national holidays, and even say some basic phrases in Italian.
If I have one slight criticism, it’s the lack of coverage of the Catanzaro province, where I happen to live in what many consider to be one of the most picturesque medieval villages in Calabria (Badolato). For the province, there are no restaurants listed outside of the city of Catanzaro, and available accommodations are also a bit ignored — there are some great agriturismi, in particular, that offer not only great lodging but also excellent dining options with food prepared from products grown and raised on the premises.
I realize this information isn’t easy to come by even for savvy guidebook researchers, but I do hope to see the Catanzaro section expanded a bit in future updates.
Overall, though, you’re not going to find a better, more comprehensive guidebook for Calabria in English, and this one comes complete with suggested one-week, two-week, and longer itineraries in case you prefer to have someone else do the planning. There are also walking tours of Reggio Calabria, Tropea, and Crotone as well as driving tours of the national parks in both the Sila and Aspromonte Mountains.
I highly recommend this book to anyone planning a trip to Calabria or who wants to learn more about the region and all it has to offer.
To see the rest of the Travellers series, visit Thomas Cook Publishing.
*
Subscribe to my Book Reviews feed — book reviews ONLY, which aren’t published to the main feed — by visiting Feedburner.
8 Beans of Wisdom to “Travellers Calabria, 2nd Edition”
Recipes
Thanks for promoting what was originally our book, but we didn’t update it (I’d be curious to know who did) – we’ve been too busy in other parts of the world – and we don’t get royalties unfortunately 🙁
Didn’t realize that, Lara — inside cover says it was updated by Zoë Ross FWIW. Hope all is well!
Regarding the lack of content of Catanzaro, the number of listings, page numbers etc are determined by the commissioning editors and it’s up to the writers or updaters to make a case for adding more to one destination and less to another. (They won’t just add pages as that costs money and makes the book more expensive to produce.) I would have done that if we’d done the second edition, but Thomas Cook didn’t ever pay enough for the work involved, so that wasn’t about to happen! 🙂 And I doubt if the updater even stepped foot in Calabria – these days, sadly, so many publishers are getting updaters to do the updating by phone, which then reflects badly on the original authors, but such is the way print publishing has gone…
I’ve heard that about the “state of the industry” so to speak. I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison with the 1st edition, but I will at some point just out of curiosity 🙂
I love this design of yours, by the way, Michelle! I’ve been too busy to check in recently, but it’s just lovely 🙂
Thanks! I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with it 🙂
Lara, I have the 1st edition, and love it. I’m sorry Thomas Cook didn’t cover your costs or use you to update it as it is well written and because of it have several places earmarked to visit this summer.
I’d be interested in the side-by-side comparisons, Michelle. I didn’t realize they’d done a revision. I know some of the guidebooks I’ve worked on and/or been contacted by hire people who live in the region for the updates.
Also, Lara – I *just* referred to your edition today when I went to Amantea. I love all of the hard-to-find history bits and interesting facts you guys included! And yes, the pics can’t be beat!
I was getting all excited until you said they panned Catanzaro!!
On the other hand, how could they talk about Calabria and NOT talk about Pizzo? , isn’t Pizzo the center of the world? Isn’t that where the most phenomenal desserts in Italy can be found? 🙂
I can hardly wait
I hope I’ll be able to read it!