Where to obtain Maps and the most user friendly.

Rick's folding maps, the ones he sells separate from the maps contained in his books, are called Planning Maps and they are not intended to be used by you to do walking tours. For that kind of detail, you can print out maps from websites such as www.viamichelin.com, hard copy detail city maps from Michelin or other map providers.Some of the maps contained in his books have enough detail for walking, but then you have to haul the book around with you or tear out pages.

The maps we always use are the free maps generally provide by the hotels. These are the advertising maps that are made available for tourist. Generally very accurate, on cheap paper that you can markup or fold up during the day, and get a new one the next day. At day's end we take a clean one and marking our day's travel for our scrapebook.

Ditto Kent's comments on RS's maps. In particular the Capri map is useless. That's why Rick always tells you where to find the TI booth in each town, so you can buy a decent map. Having said that, the maps of Venice, Florence, and Rome at the front of the Italy 2008 guidebook are not bad. That's why they're printed on heavy-weight paper. But the ones inside are just planners.

I had the full RS map of Italy with specific maps of Rome/Florence/Venice. I carried it for the first two days, but I ended up using the free map of the hotel exclusively because a) I could fold it up and stuff it in my pocket and b) staying in the Vatican neighborhood, we were far enough north that you could easily "fall off the map" if you weren't careful. The hotel map showed more of the surrounding area.

Borders or Barnes@Nobeles has a wide range of European cities maps. I think they are called pocket maps. They fold nicely and seem to last long. They are under $10. Also you can try Amazon.com and you get free shipping for orders more than $25

You'll want Michelin area maps of the places you plan to visit. These can be purchased at Amazon as noted and also at Glober Corner Bookstore which has a very wide selection of maps and guides. See www.globecorner.com/ When you reach the locality of the planned walk you can usually find free maps available.

Try also an email outlining your plans to the Italian Toutist Office in your country. They will provide regional maps, brochures etc for no cost.

I have been successful at Borders/Barnes and Noble as well. I have used the Michelin maps with great success. Also do you have a GPS with Europe on it? That will work well - I was surprised how well it worked even in CT - of course walking around CT does not require GPS. My GPS (Garmin Nuvi 370) can be set for walking mode as well as driving a car/truck etc so it will tell you how to get around a city on foot. Lets go and Streetwise make some very reliable maps of the city areas you may find useful. The TI offices often have good maps as well. I sometimes find myself armed with more than one map at a time because it seems one map never covers everything you need.