Charming Small Hotel Guides: Italy

The Charming Small Hotel Guides, started in 1986, provide detailed information on small, unique hotels, B&Bs, restaurants with rooms, pensiones, and other types of accommodation. Perhaps the most beguiling characteristic of the best places to stay in these guides is the feeling they give of being in a private home-but without the everyday cares and chores of running one.

Charming Small Hotel Guides: Italy offers a guide to small Italian hotels, many of which are in wonderful buildings and beautiful locations. What sets Italian hotels apart from other European hotels is the genuinely relaxed, informal yet sophisticated atmosphere that you find in even the smartest places. The food is another bonus of Italian hotels, with an emphasis on regional, seasonal dishes using fresh local ingredients.

What distinguishes Charming Small Hotel Guides is a variety of factors. The guides are the only independently-inspected (no hotel pays for an entry) accommodation guides; they focus on places that have real charm and character; and they are particularly fussy about size, with most hotels having fewer than 20 bedrooms. In addition, each entry is accompanied by a color photograph and a full-page description.

Charming Small Hotels offer more than just a bed for the night. The editors look for hotels that have that extra special something, regardless of category and facilities, which make them worth seeking out.

This very selective series of guides to intimate hotels offers the middle-class traveler excellent information on ambiance, service, food, and prices of hotels that they would never find in standard guidebooks. This particular guide to Italian accommodations is no exception, steering the reader to castles, converted monasteries, lakeside inns, and town hotels. The guide's only drawback is that all prices are given only in lira, but the bulk of truly helpful recommendations still make it an ideal vacation-planning tool.