No comments about Zagat 2009 London Restaurants (Zagatsurvey: London Restaurants).

3 comments about Dreaming of Tuscany: Where to Find the Best There Is: Perfect Hilltowns; Splendid Palazzos; Rustic Farmhouses; Glorious Gardens; Authentic Cuisine; Great Wines; Intriguing Shops;.

1. Since my daughter and I are going to be in Tuscany in the spring, I found the book to be a great resource for the area. I'm looking forward to seeing things firsthand...but so glad that Ms. Ohrbach has done the groundwork for us...a much more efficient use of our limited time there!



2. As a frequent traveler to Tuscany, I find this book one of the best. It reflects the romantic and unique part of the world known as Tuscany. Wonderful coffee table book, resource for Tuscany and reading for rainy days.



3. This is a lovely "coffee table" book.
   
   I found the information to be extremely general - book does not contain information that cannot be obtained in any take along travel guide such as Foders, Blue Guide, Cadogan, Rough Guide, etc. In addition, this book is NOT a good reference for individuals who travel on a budget. Most accommodations & ristorantes fall into the 4 star range; expensive.
   
   This book is the perfect book for the pretentious American tourist.

5 comments about Vienna (City Guide).

1. The fancy of going to Vienna next summer crossed my mind more than once so I decided to pick this up just to get some more information on the City of Music. It's a very concise book that can be easily toted around in a bag or pocket, which I immediately liked because should I go I would want to keep it on hand. I liked the layout for places to stay, going from campgrounds to hostels, to the hotels, going from one star to five. It has a great listing for restaurants and has the city pretty much covered in respects to places to visit and a calendar of events, which makes planning a trip a lot easier. The history was a nice added bonus for someone not knowing about the city, as well as historical people that spent time/grew up in Vienna (ie: Mozart). Colour photos and things such as political mindset, attitude towards children, the legal system are nice touches as well. However, take the prices with a grain of salt, especially with the new introduction of the Euro.



2. I've long been a Lonely Planet fan, never thinking twice about buying the appropriate Lonely Planet book whenever I travel. However, the new format and emphasis of the LP guides has made me re-think my commitment.
   
   Specifically, the "Fact for the Visitor" section has been greatly reduced, and moved under the confusingly titled "Directory" section. Unfortunately, this is difficult to locate because the Table of Contents has been bowdlerized from the former detailed breakdown into a simple section listing. If you want to find a specific piece of information, you now have to guess which section it might be hiding in (as in "Directory" -- which is almost nothing like a directory), then flip the to beginning of that section for the more detailed contents.
   
   The new, less coherent, structure is frustrating enough, but when you get each section, you find it very hard to read. One of the first things that you learn about graphic design and publishing is that sans serif typefaces are difficult to read for long passages and should only be used sparingly. The new guides have turned this on its head, and now very light sans serif faces are used almost everywhere (contrast this with earlier editions where sans serif is only used for headings). I find it difficult to read for more than a few paragraphs, which is very annoying.
   
   Being able to locate, and read the information are the two most fundamental things a guidebook needs to have, and these new editions really fail.
   
   Which raises the biggest problem of all -- LP seems to be changing its emphasis from a guide which provided lots of useful information to the budget traveler as well as the higher end independent traveler. The new guide really de-emphasizes the budget traveler, in favor of being a generic, middle of the road guide. Which, from someone who looks to get the most from his travel dollar, is extremely disappointing. In contrast with my second edition copy of this guide, the fourth edition lists half as many budget accommodations, and twice as many mid-range to expensive ones.
   
   On the plus side, the maps *finally* include a grid, making it much easier to find locations on them.
   
   On the whole though, LP has taken the guides I've loved for years, and made them much less valuable to me. In the future, I'll be shopping around for guides, instead of knowing that I can trust LP without a second thought.



3. I packed two guidebooks for my trip to Vienna: this one, and an ancient Michelin Green Guide to Austria that devoted about 20 pages to Vienna. I found the latter more useful, even though much of the information was frozen in a long-forgotten 1978.
   
   It's difficult to look up specific information in this guide, and, once found, it's sometimes misleading. "The regal rooms of Schloss Schonbrunn are in a league of their own in Vienna - the Kaiser apartments of the Hofburg hardly come close." Perhaps. But the Schonbrunn was so packed with tour groups that I ran through the forty rooms that are open for viewing as quickly as possible just to get out of the place. By contrast, a visit to the Hofburg included a moving exhibit on the wife of the emperor Franz Joseph; for me, this humanized the rooms and added a depth that the mere viewing of endless amounts of gold leaf could not.
   
   The typeface of this book is too small and faint, and the maps are unreadable. A reference for the Albertina is given as `Map pp.240-3.' Turning to page 240, I found tiny dots with tiny numbers going up to 351, but no dot with a 3. After much searching of page 240, I found the 3 on an inset map on page 241. This is inexcusable in a guidebook.
   
   Vienna is too wonderful to entrust to this guide. Friends who carried the Eyewitness Travel Guide to Vienna at least had a book that was readable.



4. A deeply disappointing, if not awful, guidebook to Vienna. I have purchased dozens of Lonely Planet guidebooks, and have had universally good experiences with the series until purchasing Lonely Planet Vienna. The guidebook was filled with inaccuracies, including wrong addresses, grossly mistaken opening hours, and misleading maps. The supposed insider recommendations often led to very touristy restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues. Do yourself a favor and buy a guidebook from another series; this one will certainly lead you astray.



5. Very helpful. I had a day to spend in Vienna and I could quickly find all the sites I needed/wanted to go, plus discover new ones.

5 comments about A Culinary Traveller in Tuscany.

1. Beth Elon's descriptions and recommendations are spot-on. I got this book just in time for a trip to Tuscany and found it extraordinarily useful. We loved visiting the places she mentioned and found her recipes and description of local specialties a great help in making fantastic menu selections. Back home, the recipes are like having Tuscany in our kitchen. It's now my favorite book to give to food- and travel-loving friends.



2. This book is what so many books claim to be but aren't -- an off-the-beaten-track gem. For any visitor to Tuscany with the time or inclination to go beyond the usual Florence-Lucca-Pisa-San Gimignano-Siena type of itinerary (to name just one), the book offers a wonderfully imaginative alternative: plan your days -- or the entire trip -- around the best restaurants to be found in the little towns that most tourists never visit. The author gives tantalizing descriptions of both the towns and restaurants (with maps and itineraries), and supplies plenty of recipes to boot. So the book will function in the kitchen just as well as on the road -- it is essentially half cookbook and half guidebook. But for me (not being much of a cook, and planning a trip to Italy) it was the places the author describes that were the most delectable of all. The book is a great idea, beautifully executed and beautifully written.



3. 
   A fabulous travel guide, which my wife and I used extensively on our recent visit to Tuscany. The author provides details of wonderful restaurants, spectacular settings and hidden gems in small towns and villages throughout the region!
   
   If you are planning a visit to Tuscany, don't leave home without this book. If you are over 50 and look forward to a good meal at the end of a well-travelled day, this book is a must-read.
   
   Mike and Michal
   New York City



4. Beth Elton's title isn't just a cookbook - it takes a culinary tour of Tuscany into regions largely uncovered in other titles - and surveys the special kitchens and products of over fifty restaurants whose cooks produce original recipes revealed just for this title. All dishes have been adapted for home cooks but retain the authenticity of generations of development, so cooks seeking a blend of travelogue and new dishes to try will find delightful the blend of travel insights and easy dishes. No photos, but the simple instructions don't need them.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



5. I love all about Tuscany would love to live ther and be able to write about it

5 comments about Prague (City Guide).

1. Lonely Planet Prague provided a great synopsis of the historical sites, with descriptions often better than those provided by our formal tour guides. The detailed information regarding transportation, costs, and hours were right on. Without the book we would have missed some off-the-beaten-path activities. Our only complaint was that some key restaurants were not included but this is the only area which I believe needs to be improved.



2. The Lonely Planet series was recommended to me, and the guide to Prague was the first one I purchased. The recommendation was right on, the guide's reputation is well deserved. Everything I needed to know is included, the places and restaurants were exactly as described, and the maps and walking tours were easy to follow.



3. Better than most books on Prague. In British dialect - so not always easy to understand.



4. I lived in Prague for a month and relied on this book if only for the maps. Of course, it was also quite helpful when it came to recommending English book stores! I've learned not to trust LP's judgment on food, but otherwise they're a handy source.



5. Great resource with great walking routes too (excellent directions!). When traveling I usually bring two, maybe three guide books. On this trip to Prague I brought two, and ended using this extensively, as the other book was found to be nothing more than extra weight to carry around the city.
   
   Highly recommend this book, plus one other (not fodor's). The only minus of this book was the metro map. But other than that this book is seriously dog eared, written in, and cherised as a great memoir of my trip to Prauge.

5 comments about Vienna Prague Budapest, 2nd (Country & Regional Guides - Cadogan).

1. We used this guide for just Budapest and Prague, not Vienna. It was usefully succinct in its description of the importance of the sights it reviewed. Also, it helped those having a limited amount of time to identify the "must see" sights and gave a quick introduction to the money, culture, etc., of the country involved. The only reason it's not 5 stars is that it failed to lay out walking routes to hit the sights it mentions, something that would have been even more useful.



2. This book covers the must sees in each city. Easy to navigate. Good photographs. I always hope that a guide book will cover some of the unusual spots to visit and I'm always looking for gardens or arboreta. This was very light on these things.



3. One of the reasons I chose to order this book was Amazon's mention of "color photographs." There are NONE, other than the cover. In fact there are no photographs at all. The very few illustrations are maps, no better than I've seen in the other books.
   
   Where this book seems superior to others is in the depth of its descriptions. For example, over two full pages on the Charles Bridge. Each country/city also has an introduction with several pages of history and art history.
   
   The font is of nice quality but just a little too small. I don't want to be whipping out the reading glasses while I'm sightseeing. Also, the book is nicely divided into the three cities, so could perhaps be cut into three parts to carry around -- but the publisher chose to put the Language section (3 languages) in the back. Why not put the Czech language section at the end of the Prague section? That would also put it closer to the restaurant listing, where a language reference would be handy.
   
   I'm going to read this thoroughly so I can better appreciate the sights, but a different book is going with me.



4. Maps are an important part of any guidebook, and the maps in this book are lacking. They do not include hotel locations on city maps nor Metro/bus stops. They have no key and are in a pink/white ink (like Rough Guide), making them difficult to read. In addition, it includes no information for budget travelers; no hostel information nor cheap eats (this book lists anything less than 25 Euros as a "Cheap Eat"). In addition, it does not include a list of bulleted "Must Sees;" it prefers to list sights by location, not importance. As a result, smaller, regional museums take precedence over more important sights, which may be listed in a different neighborhood. In addition, it does not list entrance fees to musuems, it simply says "Admission Charged." After two days, I stop using this book and started asking Tourist Information Offices for maps and suggested sights. This book would be good supplemental information for a tourist on a tour with a guide, but very poor for independent travelers.



5. It is nice to have the same book cover three major cities, often on the same trip. The book is good, both for lodging and restaurants and sightseeing. Others (Lonely Planet) are a little better, however, but only deal with one city.

1 comments about Italia: The Art of Living Italian Style.

1. ITALIA: THE ART OF LIVING ITALIAN STYLE is a title that may be misleading. This is not a 'decorator's source book' (though it certainly is an indispensable resource of information for any designer of interiors or exteriors!): this is a book rich in the Italian ambience that marries a respect of history in all forms while providing some of the finest photographs of a wide vista of Italian towns and gardens and homes. It is unique in its approach and a most rewarding read as well as a picture tour through Italy.
   
   Edmund Howard utilizes the gifts of photographer Oliver Benn in partnering this leisurely journey through all parts of Italy.The writing and the visuals are equal in quality and when paired as they are here they are inimitable. Howard divides the book into chapters: 'Towns and Landscapes' surveys the various regions from the north (Venice) through Tuscany to the south with Rome and Sicily; 'Architecture' details the forms or buildings as they have developed through centuries; 'Interiors' span the humble with the grand; 'Gardens' are explored in all varieties. Then Howard and Benn swoop down on a chapter titled 'Details': here Doors and Windows, Frescoes, Fountains, Colors, Stonework, and Mosaics are scrutinized with word and image, a point where the reader gains more information about the Italian style than in any other source.
   
   Realizing that the book will seduce many to visit the land of all this beauty, the book closes with a 'Visitor's Guide' which succinctly outlines the most interesting places to see in all of the Italian and Sicilian towns, villages and cities surveyed in this book. This is a photographic feast and a completely entertaining and readable as well as informative book. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, January 06

1 comments about Lonely Planet Edinburgh Encounter (Lonely Planet Encounter Series) (Best Of).

1. Great guide book that will fit easily into a backpack or other bag. Hits all the highlights without the history and other info in larger, heavier travel guide. Grab one for each city you plan to visit and take them with you!

5 comments about The Authentic Bistros of Paris.

1. This book does not go beyond a superficial description of the interiors of the bistros. The writers completely ignore the food and there is not one description of a dish one may expect at any of these establishments.
   
   It is of no value to anyone requiring guidance to select an authentic Parisian bistro.



2. On my way to Paris.... can't wait to visit these Bistros.
   Great descriptions. Good photos.
   More later.



3. If you're Paris-bound and looking for an easy pocket tote to take along - and have heard about the famous bistros of Paris - don't miss Authentic Bistros of Paris: there may be one on every block but this book separates wheat from chafe. It first appeared in France and now is accessible to U.S. audiences, selecting over fifty bistros which stand apart due to regional foods, wines, and atmospheres. Sure, you can visit French bistros without it - but why spend your trip on less than the best? AUTHENTIC BISTROS helps you define and find them.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. This is a GREAT book for the money. Lots of full color pictures so you really get a feel for each place, organized by arrondissement so you can find a bistro no matter what neighborhood you happen to be in, good write-ups, and small enough to take in your purse. And apart from the prices, the information about the places will probably be pretty timeless.



5. Another book about Paris bistros and cafés I read a few years ago claimed that you should be able to choose a café to make your own (and don't we all want to feel at home in a Paris café?) solely on the basis of what he had written in those pages. He didn't quite pull it off, I thought. I'd be a lot more comfortable settling into an "authentic bistro" in the City of Lights based on this book by Thomazeau and Ageorges. Their photos and descriptions of four-dozen or so bistros are wonderfully evocative.
   
   Which isn't to say they're perfect, however, as other reviewers here have attested. For one thing, the descriptions, tempting as they are, are still pretty superficial and the photos, while gorgeous, never show the bistros at the French equivalent of rush hour. While the copy does mention the nearest Metro station, there are no maps to place them in a larger context for readers not already familiar with Paris' arrondissements.
   
   All of which reminds us this is a book originally written in French, for the French. It's a great thing it was translated into English and I'm sure will make an American's trip to Paris even brighter and more memorable. For those of us stuck at home, its teasing overview leaves us wanting more (more descriptions, more recipes, more photos, more maps...) -- for which we'll need to turn to some other book.

5 comments about The Unofficial Guide to Paris (Unofficial Guides).

1. The Unofficial guide to Paris (UGP) is an excellent resource on the everyday logistics of getting around a major city. We purchased several books once we'd decided to visit France: of course, the Michelin Red guide, Frommer's Guide to France, Fodor's Paris CityPack, and then my husband brought this home as a "flyer" (we'd never used an Unofficial Guide before). Fodor's turned out to be not so useful - they included what I thought was a great Paris map but it basically disintegrated in 2 days into our trip. I immediately followed advice from the UGP and purchased a Plan de Paris - much easier to use and more detail. Frommer's Guide was very useful for finding hotels and restaurants in the Loire Valley (also part of our itinerary). But I didn't bring that book with me. The UGP provided incredible amounts of info on how to make this wonderful city very easy to navigate at reasonable prices and to enjoy with a minimum amount of tourist angst. We found the reviews for restaurants and hotels pretty much on the mark. Frommer's gave the Carte Visite an ever-so-brief mention and never mentioned (that I found) the Carte des Musees. Both these coupons saved us tons on time and money. My recommendation to future travelers to Paris would be to buy the UGP and the Michelin guide and then go to the library for other refs.



2. I just got back from Paris and I was tempted to burn this book when I got back. The shopping section was awful - we wasted an entire day in Paris based on their suggestions. For example, they tout the BVH department store. What we discovered when we got there? A Sears/Ikea combo. If you think that's worth your precious time, then go ahead and go.
   
   If you need a good guidebook - get the Rick Steves one.



3. I have loved the Unofficial Guide series ever since I bought my first one for a trip to Disneyworld. I love the star ratings that are provided for different age groups. So many travel guides promote every attraction evenly, which is not much help when you are planning a trip for two adults and two grade schoolers. Using the Unofficial Guides, I list all the attractions that are 4 stars or more for the ages in my family, and work from there.
   
   As for this particular UG-Paris book, it contained the usual high-quality UG advice. It was very useful as I decided on a hotel and decide how to structure my visit to the Louvre. I only wish I had been able to visit more of the parks that were recommended.
   
   I bought a couple of travel guides for the trip, but this is the one that I packed in my suitcase. To me, that says a lot.



4. I guess it depends what you are looking for in a guide. If it's information about sites than look elsewhere. Even the heavy sites of Paris only get a page or so. This book is heavy on background info and is aimed at the American tourist. This book did not help me at all on my trip.



5. I enjoyed reading this book. Not only is it full of lots of helpful information but it is written in a way that makes it easy and fun to read. I appreciate the practical advice that isn't found in some of the other guides. I highly recommend this book!