- Dianne Bennett, William Graebner
This book isn't for you—if you're going to Rome for the first time. Not for you if you want to see the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the baths of Caracalla, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, Trajan's Column, and St Peter's and the Vatican Museum. This book is not for you if you're thinking of evenings in Trastevere with a bottle of beer in hand or perhaps a midnight frolic with the rowdies in Campo dei Fiori. This book is NOT Rome for Dummies.
—from the introduction to Rome The Second Time.
You can't really blame authors Dianne Bennett and William Graebner for setting out quite so firmly what Rome The Second Time isn't intended to be. They cite Rome for Dummies as the antithesis of their book, but it might just as well have been one of a hundred other titles, from the Lonely Planets to the Thomas Cooks, that pump out the same information, often without a great deal to choose between them.
If you only buy one guidebook to Rome, if you only ever make one trip, then it's actually one of those books that you'll most likely need: as the title of this book implies, all of those sites mentioned above will take up your first trip(s) to Rome, and quite rightly so. But if you're planning on staying in Rome for a while, or if you're coming back, there's a good argument that Rome The Second Time is the second guidebook you should buy.
The book is divided roughly into two sections. The first consists of fourteen itineraries that deal with issues like the Nazi occupation of Rome, the magic of the water supply, and social aspects of the city. These itineraries are imaginative and well presented, and might inspire even the most worn-out pair of boots out for one more trek across the city.
The second section of the book—which also incorporates a fifteenth itinerary—is a kind of cultural gazetteer, suggesting places to go to explore the city's arts, music, films, and food and drink. (Don't expect a 'twenty best restaurants', though; the suggestions here are more along the lines of experiences, like tastings at the International Wine Academy of Roma.)
If you're going to be in Rome for long enough, or regularly enough, to get past those first fevered days between the Colosseum and the Vatican, you may well want to dip into Rome The Second Time, and see what it has to offer. It's also supported by their Website, called, well, Rome The Second Time...