5 comments about Frommer's Scotland's Best-Loved Driving Tours (Best Loved Driving Tours).

1. I really wasn't very impressed with the outline. I would recommend Scoland the Best and then the Eyewitness guide as a must if traveling to Scotland. It was not very specific, and the tours for the most part were too long. Most were 2 days, and we were in different places every other night which really didn't allow us to do what the tours suggest.



2. For all the hours we spent in the car, this book definitely came in handy. With full-color photos and maps, history and tips on scenic side trips, this guide was the best for our driving tour. The itineraries were well thought out and were a great guide and resource.



3. This review is for the 6th edition, 2005 printing.
   
   Excellent guide to seeing Scotland with a sports car or a recreational vehicle (RV; a home on wheels). You will enjoy some great driving tours and routes through this historical region of United Kingdom.
   
   Frommers has recently come out with more "Best-Loved Driving Tours" series ... guides that are not very inexpensive, but are very well researched and quite comprehensive. One will have plenty of driving tours and routes to chose from, whether you like arts and museums, scenic roads and breathtaking views, urban towns and shopping, or just want to experience a regione's culture and life.
   
   Unlike the other Frommer guides that are fatter and heavier, this little book gives you not too many specifics on lodging or eating. It is geared strictly for the person behind the wheel and her or his passengers.
   
   I have had a great experience using this guide and will recommend it to anyone who can afford it. Also, you might want to check to see if your library carries it and check it out for the duration of your visit abroad.
   
   When I backpacked 4 months through Europe I had a copy of the Lonely Planet for Europe (a thick and heavy book) because it covered more cities and esoteric towns, a ripped chapters of all the international youth hostals Europe of the countries I visited, and as primary guide for nominal cities and capitals I used Frommers (ripped the book and kept only chapters of countries planning to visit - so I can keep the weight down).



4. great itinaries for loco-regional driving
   quite detail maps and time suggestions
   best if include more long trips which cover some of everything



5. Most of the trips were little loop trips that began and ended in various locations around Scotland. What I really needed was one loop route around Scotland for one week that included my desired destination cities: Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Drumnadrochit (Loch Ness) and Glasgow. So what I had to do on my own was to cobble together pieces of various stops out of the book to fit my planned itinerary and choice of hotel stops. Since I bought the Historic Scotland Pass I also tended to visit those sites more than others in the guide. These factors made this book more of a resource picking places to visit along the way than anything else. A future edition would benefit by including about three good circle routes around Scotland (beginning at one of the two major airport cities: Glasgow or Edinburgh) to help plan a one or a two week long vacation.

2 comments about Dutch: Lonely Planet Phrasebook.

1. A phrasebook to a perennial European favourite that's changing rapidly. This simple pronunciation guide offers intuitive navigation for finding the right phrase. It includes a two-way dictionary packed with 3,500 words.



2. I have several Dutch phrasebooks and this is the latest one I bought and the best. I would say if it isn't the best it is one of the best dutch phrasebooks out there. I recomend this book for people moving to the Netherlands or even if they are staying for a short stay. Yes, most all Dutch can speak a good amount of English but you get really far with them if you at least try to speak Dutch. There is a food section that I found helpful several times when the waiter or waitress doesn't know what the item is in English. It also includes and English-Dutch dictionary in the back. It has great phrases from going to the bank to hanving sex with them written out in Dutch and then again in English. Make sure to purchase for you trip to The Netherlands.

5 comments about Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted.

1. Delightful voice, funny anecdotes, cleverly written. You will find yourself chuckling out loud more than once.



2. Annie Hawes has a wonderfully detailed and descriptive style of writing therefore this was not a story that could be breezed through but rather something to be read slowly and deliberately, savoring every word. She gave a realistic and honest view of life in the Italian countryside which this Italian-American found to be very enlighting!



3. I have read a number of Italy travelogues, from folks who are just traveling through to expats and those who choose to live there part time. The most enjoyable aspect of this book is that the author choses to focus on the people who live there. Most of the other books on this topic that I've read are rather ego-centric and reveal more on the topic of their authors than on the country or its people. But this book is centered on the stories of the Italians whose community she has joined and whose customs and conventions she is learning. Her delightfully dry wit and British sense of humor are a plus.



4. On a wet, cold, typically gloomy day in England in 1983, Annie Hawes (broke and out of work) and her sister Lucy (bored and lusting for adventure) decide that enough is enough. Clutching a job description offering ten weeks work grafting roses on the Italian Riviera, room and board included, Lucy assures Annie that they can lie their way into the job and fake their way through it. Off they go to San Pietro, Liguria, quaint, sun-kissed village on the Mediterranean to live among the hankie-heads (men's knotted at the corners, women's tied at the nape of the neck). Although the sky and sea are blue and beautiful, the hoped-for handsome, tanned young men and wild night life of the Riviera are non-existent. It seems that their village is undiscovered by tourists, and the inhabitants have very strict ideas about proper behavior for young women and the correct way to do just about everything--"Never drink cappuccino after twelve noon. Italian is only spoken by policemen and tax collectors. Women do not speak to men in a bar, even if they are close friends. Swimming in the ocean before July will make you ill--no matter how hot it is."
   
   Unexpectedly, Annie and Lucy fall in love with the little town and all its peculiar, lovable inhabitants. They even find a delerict old farmhouse on a lovely hillside overlooking the ocean--a real fixer-upper with no toilet or running water. They could buy it for a couple of thousand dollars, but they have no permanent job or savings. How they manage to make a home for themselves in San Pietro is a delightful tale, full of laughter, local color, and amazing information about olive trees. And in case you are so enchanted that you think perhaps you will just move there yourself, the last chapter is a helpful recent update on San Pietro.
   
   A wonderful book written by a woman who turned her fantasy into reality with humor, determination, and a few bald-faced lies.
   
   by Carolyn Blankenship
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



5. This is a delightful tale of time spent in place and time near but far away from the stilish and popular Cotta Azura. I know this area well from time spent rebuilding the Italian Steel Industry in Cornigliano under the Marshall Plan. The author has a keen eye and ear for detail.

5 comments about Michelin the Green Guide Paris (Michelin Green Guides).

1. "Les Guides Mich" as the French refer to this series, is a series of tour books for different regions of France. Some are available only in French; the most popular are in English.
   A trip to Paris DEMANDS this guide -- far superior to Rick Steve's series.
   Walking tours, wonderful maps, and enough information for even the persons who have often visited Paris. I also suggest, for the photography, National Geographic's "PARIS"
   
   The Michelin RED guides are for lodging and restaurants, by the way.



2. Michelin the Green Guide Paris (Michelin Green Guides)
   The main issue is the way the guide is constructed: neighborhoods by alphabetical order... I was walking from one area to another and had to try to find out which page to go. each area has a good detailed map but the maps are not linked and when moving one won't know where the map continues.
   Also, there are very few hotels/restaurants listed and minor attractions, like small museums, are hardly reported.
   I would not buy again



3. A splendid pocket book to take with you as you walk or ride through Paris, notes on most buildings, good restaurants and handy cafes to stop by as you travel and a thorough historic background to this lovely City.



4. I have used the Michelin green guides for years and am now in the travel business, specifically doing business in France. I find this current edition a bit lacking, though it is generally a good guide. Unfortunately, there seems to be a "dumbing-down" of the guides in English (are we Americans not sophisticated travelers?); the same guide written is French is much more complete and detailed; I would opt for it if you read French...if not, for a more detailed cultural guide try Blue Guide Paris



5. Recommended by my French professor, I leaned heavily upon the expertise of the Michelin Green Guide during my first trip to Paris. The guide proved its worth over and over again. Despite the abundance of tourist guides for Europe and the vast expanse known as the Internet, this particular guide deserves a special place in your travel bag because:
   
   It is thorough. Every detail you wanted to know - and some you could not imagine - can be found in this Guide. Architecture? History? The nearest bus stop? It's all there. Unlike most tourist books, the Green Guide covers ALL OF PARIS. You will find every big and little neighborhood arranged in alphabetical order.
   
   It provides decent walking tours, and not just for touristy neighborhoods, either. These are essential for the renegade explorer who craves something other than a cookie-cutter experience abroad.
   
   Maps maps maps! Maps of the gardens of Versailles, map of the Métro, maps of the cemeteries... The floor plans of museums (Le Grand Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, etc.) help as well.
   
   One of my favorite parts of the book is the front flap. It contains a list of unusual métro stations - a list that becomes enormously valuable when the weather doesn't allow traditional sight-seeing. If for no other reason, choose this guide for the flap: it starts out strong, and only illuminates your mind from there.

3 comments about Brassai, Paris (Taschen 25th Anniversary Special Editins).

1. i was really happy with this book. there is some great text which accompanies the images that i had not read before. overall, i totally recommend! i love brassai and i have only seen a couple of his books that are better.



2. Brassaï is one of those indispensable artists, which rarely come along every 50 years or so. Photographer, writer, painter, film maker, he recorded for us what must have been the most fruitful era for art, in the most fruitful place for art: Paris. He knew everyone from the dadaists to the surrealists and the cubists. He formed an uneasy friendship with Picasso, which resulted on his book My Conversations With Picasso, a first hand account of the comings and goings in the artist's life and studio, that I highly recommend. But it is as a photographer that he excels, providing for us unforgettable images of the city that he loved. Paris by Night, one of his colections of photos, gives us the wanderings about, of an artist and his camera at a time at which the city is at it's most beautiful, without any other equipment than a tripod to hold his camera steady. This book also includes The Secret Paris and a wonderful section of artis's portraits: Dalí, Picasso, Matisse and many others.



3. Everyone in the know knows that Taschen is a top-of-the-line publisher of Art and Photography books so naturally this one is beautifully done. However, even Taschen can make blunders. The flaps of the cover on this book are a dark shade of lipstick red with small black lettering. Ironically the blurb on these flaps describes Bendikt Taschen's twenty-fifth anniversary as an art book publisher. Because of the tiny black type on the dark red background it is virtually impossible to read about how great Taschen books are. Fortunately, this is the only flaw I found in this excellent book, it's just amusing that the mistake involves the text it does. At least the reader can read the testimonial on the back cover's flap because it is in larger black type and simply proclaims "The most exquisite books on the planet."
   Brassai didn't take his first pictures until 1929. In 1932 a journalist friend told Brassai he knew of a publisher who wanted to publish a book of photographs of Paris at night but had been unable to find a photographer who could handle the task. Brassai had already been exhaustively exploring exactly that subject with his camera. Later that same year in December 1932 Brassai's first book PARIS DE NUIT was published. Almost a dozen more books followed during his long life and career. It wasn't until 1976 that the more erotic pictures of Paris nightlife were published in Brassai's LE PARIS SECRET DES ANNEES 30, which is one of this reviewer's favorites. Those pictures that were also taken in the 1930's were too hot for a publisher to risk bankruptcy and or jail by publishing before 1976 when the obscenity laws were relaxed somewhat.
   This volume contains some pictures from all or at least most of Brassai's books including LES SCULPTURES DE PICASSO, GRAFFITI, PICASSO & CO., HENRY MILLER: GRANDEUR NATURE and THE ARTISTS OF MY LIFE. Brassai, who was also an accomplished artist in several mediums, was a member of the Bohemian Montparnasse or what I call the "Camelot of Art." He was friends with most of the artists and writers of the period. Much of his early photography was to document them and their work for publication. He was their contemporary and while his non-photography work is also masterful, it was photography that was to make him famous. Throughout his life he kept switching back and forth working in various art mediums. He loved the variety and couldn't, wouldn't really specialize in any one facet of art. He liked his freedom too much to only practice one of his passions. He was a master craftsman of several including writing. He often wrote articles to pay his bills especially after he first arrived from his native Transylvania where he was born in 1899. I apologize in advance but when I learned that Brassai was from Transylvania I could not keep myself from wondering about his fascination with photographing Paris after dark. He loved those pitch-black forays and at one time was familiar with the most unsavory and criminal characters populating the sleazy nighttime world of Paris. This was dangerous information to know because the local gangsters would rub out any stool pigeons they even thought might be spying for the police. Just maybe the man from Transylvania simply was not frightened of these mere mortals? Nobody else had previously done it and most photographers weren't up to the job or were too scared to attempt taking midnight pictures of gargoyles on the top of Norte Dame by the light of a full moon, street harlots and their pimps, muggers, murders and thieves, homosexual clubs and brothels of all sorts, heroin dens and any other unsavory activity including perverts trysting clandestinely in various infamous Paris Loos. That may have been where Brassai picked up his fascination with graffiti? He eventually turned that graffiti into a book, which must be something akin to turning a lemon into lemonade. This is the best Brassai book to own if you are only going to have one of his published photographic collections. Taschen really does do a remarkably good job of publishing art books and hopefully they will stay out of the red and in the black. Sorry about that folks, I couldn't resist. Have fun discovering the world of a remarkable photographer from what is now Hungry. (I'm resisting another bad pun.) This really is a very, very good, terrific collection of historically significant photographs.

No comments about Spectacular Paris.

2 comments about Michelin the Green Guide Spain (Michelin Green Guides).

1. As expected from the Michelin Green Guides series, this one too is a wonderful travel companion. Accurate and up to date, covers all important milestones and goes past the shallow surface barely scratched by other travel guides.
   This Michelin Green Guides is the best available, if you're going to travel to Spain don't leave home without it.



2. I used this book in 2005 to visit Madrid/Toledo/Segovia/Seville/Granada and Cordoba and then again in 2007 on a 10 day trip through Galicia. The book's main advantage is that towns/cities are in alphabetical order, so info is easy to find.
   
   However, I find the text lacking in sparkle--a bit too dull.........It was my #3 choice for information. (I also had the DK guide and the Rough Guide)
   
   The size and shape of this book make it easy to carry during the day, but most of the time, I carried the DK guide!!

2 comments about Azores, 3rd: The Bradt Travel Guide.

1. This book was very helpful for my week long trip to the Azores. There are useful appendices in the back detailing flora and fish native to the islands (this helped alot ordering fish in the restaurants!) There is also a good section on photography which I did not expect. Although, I am more accustomed to the format of lonely planet guides this one proved to be organized ok. Nice sections on walks and hiking trails. A bit lacking in the transport department but don't worry, the islands are small and cabs are affordable and easy to find.



2. My wife and inlaws are natives of Pico, Azores and I purchased this book as reference material for a upcoming family trip to Pico. We all found valuable information in the book and my inlaws even learned a few things they didn't know about their homeland. Well worth the money. Strongly recommend buying the Azores road map too.

5 comments about Poland (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE).

1. I like the DK books because they have good maps, nice pictures, diagrams of major sites and more without the preachiness and lead-you-by-the-hand aspect of other guidebooks. But the Poland book I had, which is the edition with the triangular yellow peak and gabled roof of the Wroclaw town hall on the front (the newest one has a landscape scene), disappointed.
   
   First, it concentrated entirely too much on Warsaw. Second, it gave relatively short shrift to both Krakow and Auschwitz. For those reasons, the book did not provide the level of detail or the solid amount of suggestions of what to see that I expected from a DK Guide.
   
   Indeed, on my trip, we used the local In Your Pocket guides and supplemented with a general Eastern Europe travel book by that bespectacled fellow who does not use the front door and whose name slips the mind, but rarely took the DK guide with us during the day.
   
   Hopefully, the lapses we noticed have been rectified in the new version of the guidebook (remember, landscape on the cover). If not, steer clear and buy a guidebook written by some other company, even the aforementioned man who is always on PBS -- whatshisname.



2. great photos, fun layout, and light on facts, history, analysis, etc. but a great quick look.



3. I used this book to plan an upcoming trip to Poland. Like most people I know virtually nothing about what there is to see in Poland. This book was indispensable! And best of all it is filled with pictures! So even though Poland is filled with castles I was able to make a judgement as to which castles looked the most interesting. If you are spending only three or four days in Krakov this book contains more than enough information. No need to buy the Krakov book. The book is divided into regions with lots of maps to help orient you. They also spend a page or two giving in-depth highlights of areas of special interest in addition to the usual stuff for each area. If you are visually oriented don't even think about buying any other guidebook.



4. An excellent book, providing essential tourism information for the serious tourist to Poland. It contains a wealth of data, and makes planning and actual travel and sightseeing much easier. Highly recommended.



5. I have found Eyewitness travel guides inconsistent. They are not all organized the same way and are not always helpful. The maps in the Poland guide were useless and I found many descriptions lacking. Much of what is written about accomadations and restaurants is inaccurate.

5 comments about Naples & The Amalfi Coast (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE).

1. I was hoping to get some more info. on the Amalfi coast towns, as that's where I'm visiting this summer. The coverage of Naples is extensive, which of course, is the lead part of the title. But "and the Amalfi coast" was also thrown in there, and for my interests, the towns of Positano, Praiano, Amalfi and Ravello occupied a total of 2 pages in a 250 page book. Sorrento got another 2 pages. That being said, the overall book is beautifully produced with lots of photos, maps, and careful drawings of key buildings. It's slim, easy to carry in your bag, and the text is an easy read, nothing overly confusing here. I think if you're looking for Naples info. mostly then this is your book. It would deserve 5 stars for that.



2. I have not received this book. I received the wrong book from Frugal Media on Thursday. I e-mailed them on Thursday March 8, 2007 and still have not heard from them. They sent me "Maple V Quick Reference" book in error. I still need this book for travel in April (2007). Can you help me?



3. An excellent guide to one of the most picturesque parts of Italy. Easy to use and full of information. Guide directions assure an excellent experience in the locale.



4. I will travel to Italy and I expected a little more information from this book about the Amalfi Coast...



5. I traveled to Naples in August 2007, staying just off the Spaccanapoli. Using this as a starting point, I traveled down to Pompeii and Vesuvius and finally on to Sorrento (the most beautiful of all my stops, by far!) The DK guide kept things straight in my mind and recommended some very interesting sites (such as the shopping lanes in Sorrento and details of the Naples Cathedral) that I might have missed otherwise. Food and entertainment suggestions were also right on.
   
   It's a small guide, but packs a lot in. I found it to be very useful for my stay in this area of Italy. Highly recommended. One last thing: when you're planning your stay in the region, at least investigate the possibility of making your home base in Sorrento or one of the Amalfi towns. Naples might appeal to some, but I found the city a bit too chaotic and dirty. There's a homey, inviting feel to some areas. But I still believe that travelers would do better in the smaller towns. If you'd like to see the Naples Archaeological Museum, Galleria Umberto, or other site in the city, think about making it a day trip or two into Naples. The Circumvesuviana line runs from Sorrento to Naples and is only about 10 euro. If you're the type that appreciates a quiet, casual atmosphere, you'll be much happier along the coast in my opinion.