Projected edited by Melissa Shales and with no fewer than four Guild authors involved (Melissa Shales, Lisa Gerard-Sharp, Adele Evans and Rebecca Ford), this lavishly illustrated offering from Insight Guides is unusual in that it includes all the lakes - including the Swiss portion, plus short chapters on Milan and Verona. It also includes some detail on the ski areas just to the north of the area, with plenty of links to take you further. In other words, it reflects what people actually do and where they actually want to go when they are in the area, not artificial borders to provide full year-round coverage, whether you want a short-break, action holiday or lazy two weeks in the summer.

Although it is a large book with 320pp and over 400 photos, it took a Herculean effort to cram the information into the available space and several months' of research by a team of writers who were already leading experts on Italy and on this region in particular. Melissa Shales as project editor found it equally inspirational and frustrating. "I could, quite literally, have spent the rest of my life working on this project - there is so much here. It was very hard to draw the boundaries but I am proud of the finished result and the hard work of all the team."

The book costs £14.99 and is available on Amazon at £10.99.

Purchase from Amazon.