Guidebook Series Books

Paris (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)

DK Publishing

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Subjects -> Travel -> Europe -> France -> Paris
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This guidebook made making our way around Paris a piece of cake 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We have just returned from Spring Break in Paris and the "Paris: Eyewitness Travel Guide" was our guidebook for our trip. Of course, the photo illustrations in any DK book are always impressive, and since I always like to see where I am going and what is to see there without having to Google everything, that was an obvious plus with this book. I must admit that II do not really think about this particular book as a guidebook for getting in-depth information about places; when I want that sort of information I get a guidebook at the place (only thing I bought on the trip were guidebooks and postcards). In practical terms this guidebook functioned as our menu for the trip, allowing us to see what was available and when you could visit, which was crucial because visiting hours change based on the month and the day (my biggest piece of advice based on this trip is that if you can go see the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay at night--Wednesday and Thursday respectively--you will enjoy them a lot more without the massive crowds during the day).

For me the best part of this guide book ended up being the maps. Paris is gridded out in 18 maps in the back of the book and for each region of the city there is a general map of the entire area with "Sights at a Glance" marked along with metro and train stations. Add to the mix the Paris Metro and Regional Express Railway (RER) map inside the back cover, and we found it incredibly easy to find things. We got a 5-day Metro pass and had the fortune of our hotel being right down the street from the Montparnasse Bienvenile station, which was the intersection of several metro lines (plus linked to a train station which allowed us to go to Chartres and be back by 1 in the afternoon). Except for a bus tour/river cruise the first night and a side trip to Versailles, we did not have our trip planned out. We had a list of things we wanted to see and each day would pick a starting point and work out our other options as we went along. These maps were great for making that relatively easy. Nor did we feel that we were restricted to the restaurants in our area because we were able to use our maps to head off into the night and find them.

The only exception would be the maps of the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise and Cimetiere du Montparnassem because they were not extremely helpful in trying to find several of the graves I was trying to track down. Those of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are easy to find because there are also several people standing around them, but finding those of Moliere, Sarah Bernhardt, and Samuel Becket were much harder. The guide does provide tiny icons representing what the graves actually look like, but the locations can be troublesome, especially when the graves are not right on a walkway. But there are detailed maps for Pere Lachaise and signs at the entrances that you can photograph with your digital camera and reference as you walk about (courtesy of your magic zoom button).

I bought the book a year before our trip, when my impromptu suggestion that we go to Paris for Spring Break was derailed by the lack of a current passport. So there is a minor concern that information is not totally current. On the one hand the Musee de l'Orange with Monet's water lily series was open, but the one place my wife wanted to go, the restaurant atop La Samaritaine, was derailed because the department store was closed. As long as you suspect that these sort of things are always going to happen (I felt sorry for the law students visiting the Louvre to discover that the Code of Hammurabi was not on display), you should be able to roll with these punches. Final word of advice regarding this particular guidebook: Make sure that you have a purse or a coat with pockets large enough to accommodate the peculiar not quite "pocket" size of this guide.

Editorial Review:

The Eyewitness Travel Guide helps you to get the most out of your trip with minimum difficulties. The opening section Introducing Paris locates the city geographically, sets modern Parisian its historical context and explains how Parisian life changes through the years. Paris At a Glance is an overview of the city's specialties. The main sightseeing section of the book is Paris Area by Area. It describes all the main sights with maps, photographs and detailed illustrations. Get to know Paris with The Eyewitness Travel Guide.

Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

DK Publishing

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Subjects -> Travel -> Guidebook Series -> Eyewitness -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fine guide, but biased 3 out of 5 stars.
16 of 17 people found this review helpful.

As someone who has lived in Israel for almost a year, I know that every tiny thing is politicized here. So I don't really hold it against this guide that it has an obvious anti-Zionist slant. It's hesitant to mention the word Israel (note the title), but sometimes it does. It does not acknowledge that Jerusalem is in Israel, but you'd only notice that if you're paying attention. Any section that discusses the modern history of Israel is severely biased. The tone is appropriate, but the facts are presented in such a one-sided manner that relying just on this book would give you a seriously skewed perspective. There aren't many up-to-date guides to Israel, and this one is pretty good (I also like the Frommer's). So go ahead and buy this guide, but read about Israel from a couple of other sources to offset the bias. The Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict is an easy to digest overview, though it's biased in the other direction -- sadly, I don't think objectivity on this subject is achievable.

Purely as a tour guide, this doesn't quite stand alone; it's a great supplement if you have another guide. Hotel and restaurant listings are very brief, and they aren't included on the maps.

Peru (Country Guide)

Sara Benson, Paul Hellander, Rafael Wlodarski

Amazon Price: $15.63 List Price: $22.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Lonely Planet Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $11.99

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Subjects -> Travel -> Latin America -> South America -> Peru

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

so wrong about cusco 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

my wife and i spent 4 days in cusco and could not find a single restaurant that lonely planet recommended. my wife is fluent in spanish and we spoke with locals and touristico police and NOBODY had even heard of the restaurants. very frustrating.

and cusco sucks, don't waste time there. arequipa is a million times better.

Editorial Review:

Discover Peru

Bike, hike and ride a scary cable car to Machu Picchu on one of five alternatives to the busy Inca Trail.
Glide past manatees, dolphins, monkeys and macaws in the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria.
Swill a scoopful of chicha - saliva-fermented corn beer - to earn the respect of the locals.
Descend into the narrow, hallucinatory underground chambers of the millennia-old ruins at Chavin de Huantar.

In This Guide:

Three authors, 144 days of on-the-road research via planes, riverboats, and dozens of death-defying bus rides.
Dedicated Peru Outdoors chapter, plus expanded activities coverage throughout.
Get the inside story on the Inca world from notes explorer and author Hugh Thomson.
Content updated daily - visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the minute reviews and traveler suggestions.

New Zealand (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)

DK Publishing

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Subjects -> Travel -> Australia & South Pacific -> New Zealand
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

New Zealand Eyewithess Travel Guide is great for planning 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Eyewithess Travel Guides give the best overall overview of any travel book or other travel product - good organization; great pictures, maps and other graphics; interesting & concise text and descriptions about history, national foods and beverages, etc.; good suggestions for lodging and eating. They are excellet resource and reference books, but they are concise enough to give a relatively complete overview but short enough to quickly convey information, especially if you do not have a lot of free time.

I believe that carefully reading about a desination is important for planning any trip. The Eyewithess Travel Guides are the best way to obtain that overview and prioritize where you want to go. The New Zealand guide is enormous help to us with our planning.

Editorial Review:

Recognized the world over by frequent flyers and armchair travelers alike, Eyewitness Travel Guides are the most colorful and comprehensive guides on the market. With beautifully commissioned photographs and spectacular 3-D aerial views revealing the charm of each destination, these amazing travel guides show what others only tell.

Ireland (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

DK Publishing

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Subjects -> Travel -> Europe -> Ireland -> General
Subjects -> Travel -> Europe -> Ireland -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> Guidebook Series -> Eyewitness -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Buy it!! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Bought this guidebook for our trip to Ireland in 2007. Incredibly useful for picking out things to do/see, places to visit, what to avoid. There were even maps of the floorplans for historic buildings! This book was dog-eared long before the trip and carried in the totebag every day. Dublin seems to have a phobia with street signs so I used the hotel listings in the back to determine how much further was the walk from that hotel to Trinity College - worked like a charm! Galway was far and away the best part of the trip due to the extensive recommendations. And County Meath - we would never had gone to the mid-lands if not for this book and I am so glad that we did go. Trim was quaint and charming and convenient for traveling around castle gazing and visiting the Bru na Boinne and Tara.

Best advice from this book: ride the Iarnrod Eireann (train) cross country rather than driving - it's quicker, hassle-free and cheaper than car rental and a tank of very expensive European gasoline (buy tickets on-line while in America to cut down on the fees for turning dollars into the Euro). We also hired a driver for the day we spent traveling about the Bru and the fee was cheaper than renting a car. Not to mention you don't have to worry about getting lost on those very narrow, very winding roads. I still thumb through this book remembering how great our trip was....

Editorial Review:

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive, engrossing and just plain fun-to-read guidebook than the Eyewitness Travel Guide: Ireland. Spilling over with all sorts of useful information for the traveler, you'll find three-dimensional drawings, floor plans, detailed neighborhood maps with a street-finder index, and even historical timelines. Broken into several sections (including "Introducing Ireland," "Region by Region," "Traveler's Needs," and "Survival Guide"), the guide paints a complete picture of the country. Readers will especially love the hundreds of color photos of everything from the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare to the Connemara landscape of County Galway to out-of-the-way pubs and street-by-street illustrated city walks (Dublin's Southeast walk takes in famed landmarks such as Trinity College, St. Stephen's Green and the Shelbourne Hotel). You'll also find listings for Aran sweaters, Waterford crystal, and Celtic recordings. --Jill Fergus