City books

"We have Rick's general Europe book, which covers every city we're visiting except Munich (which I wish it did!)."

It's not clear what book you do have? It sounds like you only have one book: which I'm guessing would be Best of Europe? If that's correct, then you only have the most general book and the coverage of individual cities in Best of Europe is quite limited.

Rick has 2 levels of more in depth coverage: country books and city books for certain cities, including the 3 you're going to.

In the Italy book, there may be 800 pages but Rome is only a chapter with maybe 120 pages. And the city book, Rome, has 400 pages just on Rome.

Whether the extra coverage is worth the cost, considering the days you're in each city, is a matter of personal preference, which you can decide for yourself after browsing inside the city books.

The way to browse inside each book is:Go to Google Book at http://books.google.com/advanced_book_searchonce on the site, search for a 2008 or 2009 edition of the city book (you probably can't browse inside a 2010 edition because of copyright restrictions that Rick has waived on many, if not all, of the slightly older editions)

The coverage difference is slight between, for example, a 2008 and 2010 Rome book; they're updated for prices but coverage will be the same for a 2008 and 2010 Rome book. Of course, if you decide to buy the city books, you'll get the 2010 edition, but for your purpose of deciding whether it's worth it in the first place, this should work for you.

If you currently only have Best of Europe, and you're going to London, Paris, and Rome, but you're not going to other parts of the UK, France, or Italy--then you may decide to buy the three city books but not the country books.

It is the Best of Europe book, sorry. I knew the city specific books covered each city in far greater depth than the Best of, but I didn't know what to expect from them (perhaps more restaurants, hotel, walks we wouldn't have time for, etc).

Thanks for the tip on being able to browse the older copies! I'll take a look and decide if the extra depth is worth it for us.

At the risk of being branded a heretic, I use DK's "Top 10 Paris, Rome, London, ect," guides on my travels along with torn out pages of Rick's guides rather than drag around the big blue books--besides, DK's fit snugly in my back pocket within easy reach.

I agree, DKs top ten city guides are great and so compact.

Rick Steve's Paris edition contains a lot more information than the larger France book... however, other than including a few areas of the city where most tourists never visit, it was mostly just expanded information about the various museums.

Darrell, my suggestion is to go to a large bookstore that carries lots of travel books. Grab a few off the shelf, get a cup of coffee sit down, and go through them. If one catches your fancy, buy it. Otherwise, just taking some notes might do the trick.

If you had zero books, I'd say get one. But you might not need to buy all three. Or you might like another writer's guidebook even more.

We always combine a RS guide book with some of other publishers to get different points of view and more pictures. DK is great for that. A bit heavy though.

Darrell, have you tried your local library? Ours carries several of the city books by Rick Steves, as well as other authors'. Munich has a tourism website in English. Have fun!