Rick Steves' new Italy audio walking tours

Rick Steves is a popular writer of European travel guidebooks and host in several travel shows on public television and public radio. His excellent Italy guides offer plenty of detailed information on places to visit and affordable accommodations in main Italy destinations (N.B. Our eBook is a perfect companion of Rick's guides as we focus on the Italian culture and how to deal with everyday things in your trip).

Among his new media initiatives that I like the most are the FREE audio walking tours of Rome, Florence and Venice.
These audio tours are downloadable MP3 files narrated by Rick himself that you can put on your portable device such as an iPod or SmartPhone. Rick explains the history of places like the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the Uffizi Gallery and other important locations as if you were hiring a dedicated guide.

I praise Rick for embracing blogging and podcasting as a way to create conversations with his audience and I look forward to see his audio tours start covering more areas outside the classic tourist circuit.

Italy audio tour guides for your iPod

If you're planning to bring along your iPod, Zune or other MP3 player in your next trip to Italy, here is a good way to maximize the use of your device. WhiteHot Productions has released a series of personal audio tour guides of some key Italian destinations called Great Discoveries.

I had an opportunity to review their product and enjoy the professionally produced recordings with historically appropriate background music. You can preview some of the audio tour clips directly on their site. For several destinations, such as Palazzo Ducal in Venice, you can download and print floor plans and maps in PDF format as well.
Priced around $16 per audio guide, you may already enjoy some savings if you've two or more family members planning to rent the official audio devices offered by the museums.

Being a podcaster myself, I love the idea and I appreciate the quality implementation of these audio guides.