ITALY: The United Kingdom and France each gets more tourists from the United States than Italy does, according to Commerce Department statistics. Nonetheless, many travel experts say Italy is the country American travelers are most interested in learning about.

"Italy with a capital I, that's where the action is," said Mike Weingart, a Carlson Wagonlit travel agent in Houston.

AAA Travel booked more trips to Italy this year than any other destination in Western Europe, with a 9 percent growth over last year and a whopping 34 percent of all AAA bookings to the region.

"One of the top questions we have been getting is, 'Where in Italy do I go?"' said Frommer, who hosts a radio show with her father Arthur. "It seems to be very popular among first-time visitors."

Fodor's has just come out with a new guide called "Essential Italy: Rome, Florence, Venice & The Top Spots In Between." "The inspiration for the book came from just looking at our Web site and the reader comment boards," said "Essential Italy" editor Matthew Lombardi. "There were all these little headers saying, 'Rome, Florence, Venice, help me plan my itinerary.'"

Americans are "more savvy now about the pleasures of contemporary Italian culture," Lombardi added. "They can go and see the Pantheon, but they also realize that great Italian food is not spaghetti and meatballs." They want to sample regional identities, cuisine and villages in places like Tuscany and Umbria.

EASTERN EUROPE: "People keep heading east," said Concierge.com's Frank. "People who've done Paris and Rome and Florence and Madrid, they want to see what else is out there."

Publishers are responding with a slew of new books, like Frommer's "Eastern Europe," out April 2, and new DK Eyewitness Travel guides on the "Czech & Slovak Republics," "Cracow" and a "Top 10 Dubrovnik & the Dalmatian Coast."

"There's still a curiosity about the former Communist countries and what they are really like," said Douglas Amrine, DK Eyewitness Travel publisher. Yet with so many of these countries now in the European Union, travelers rightly perceive that "the infrastructure will be there" in terms of hotels, restaurants and customer service to accommodate them, Amrine added.

For bargain-hunters, the U.S. dollar goes further in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. But high-end travelers will also feel at home in a spate of new luxury hotels, from the Mandarin Oriental Prague to a Four Seasons in Budapest to the high-tech Domina Grand in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Frank said.