Get the Gault-Millau Restaurant Guide to Italy. It is wonderful and very accurate. Gives detailed descriptions of places all over Italy. You will see others clutching their books. Do not get any hotel that is far from public transportation like the Hilton in Rome. Cabs are astronomical, cars a nightmare, and the Hilton was a really difficult place to access, despite the view..
We rented a car but just to do the small towns and to go from city to city. A rarely visited little jewel is Ravenna on the Adriatic. The city of mosaics, lovely piazza.