Visiting Italy? Aree Di Sosta Review (Italian aires)
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for this review. I did not receive any payment and was not required to write a positive review.
If you’re visiting Italy in a motorhome and are a fan of the aire/motorhome stopover, then you will probably want to pop a copy of the 2015/16 Aree Di Sosta guide in your glove box.
Published by Italian magazine CamperLife and available in the UK from Vicarious Books, this guide is Italy’s answer to All the Aires France and France Passion combined.
It’s the definitive guide to Italian Sosta motorhome stopovers, and contains details of 2,836 Aree (aires), including 273 agri-tourism sites that are broadly equivalent to the farms/vineyards/etc found in France Passion and indeed in Brit Stops and the Italian equivalent, Fattore Amico.
In total, the Aree di Sosta contains full details of the location and facilities of:
- 1264 Aree Attrezzate. General parking areas with picnic tables and other services.
- 752 General parking areas that also tolerate motorhomes parking overnight.
- 80 Italian motorhome service points only.
- 273 Agriturismi (agri tourism) farms and establishments that allow overnight parking.
- 467 selection of small rural campsites.
A fold-out, colour-coded map is also included.
It is an Italian guide
At this point I should say that this guide is almost entirely in Italian. However, the graphical key used through the guide to describe each location is translated into English, so the only thing that may need some educated guesswork is the short description of each location.
For anyone with a bit of common sense and a few words of French or Spanish, this isn’t hard. Alternatively, half an hour spent with Google translate or an Italian phrasebook before you leave will give you a core of useful words.
Maps, directions, co-ordinates & pictures
Aree di Sosta contains a fold-out map, a brief description of each location plus sat nav co-ordinates and a graphical key to the facilities at each location and what type of location it is — e.g. service point only or overnight parking.
The only thing that’s missing from this guide is photographs. Unlike the superbly illustrated All the Aires France and other Vicarious guides, there are no photos of the aire locations. This is probably my only reservation about this guide — a picture really is very useful when you’re visiting a new area.
However, with nearly 3,000 locations, it’s easy to see why there are no pictures, and overall this wouldn’t stop me buying and using this guide.
Aree di Sosta 2015/16 details
Title: Aree di Sosta – Italia
Publisher: Camperlife (www.camperlife.it)
ISBN: 977-228127145-5
Price: £11.99
Get it: At Vicarious Book (www.vicarious-shop.com)
I have the 2015/16 Aree Di Sosta book. I’m in Italy having ferried from Dubrovnik to Bari. Being as thick as two planks I can’t use the guide. True the guide comes with a map covered in dots of various colours, that when compared to the key , show campsites, stopovers service points etc. However none of the dots has any reference to connect to the entries in the book. True again each campsite or aire has its grid reference, but that doesn’t help me locate the site on the map. Am I missing something. Jim
Hi Jim,
Having had a quick look at our copy, I think you’re right. It looks like you’re meant to find stops in the area you visit and then match them by name to the book. Not the best method compared to some of the guides produced for other countries, but better than nothing, I guess.
Roland
It’s Italian…. Who would expect it to be straightforward? (no offence to any Italians – vi amo.)
There is an app for iphone and android with the sites marked and you can use GPS to locate those nearby. Search camperlife on google store or apple