Blue Guide Rome
Scholarly and readable: an indispensable guide to Rome
Reviewed by Anne Redmon
Format: Paperback
We bought the Blue Guide to Rome for our second visit to the city in six months: this was because the Michelin Guide we had used before gave us only cursory information on the sites we had visited then. Rome was not, of course, built in a day and any of its major treasures certainly take at least half a day to see adequately. The Blue Guide is scholarly and perhaps too heavy-weight for quick tourism but if you have been bitten by the Roman bug and really want to delve then this is for you. It is written in clear language and the index makes it easy for you to dive in at any level you want. Now I have come home I want to pick it up again and pore over it, revisiting in my mind the places that we saw. We were particularly interested in San Clemente. My husband visited it alone in December because I had a tummy bug at the time and he had only the Michelin for company. This time we went together and spent an entire morning there with the Blue Guide taking us all the way from the Temple of Mithras on the lowest level right up to the stunning mosaics in the church itself. We could hardly tear ourselves away.