4 comments about Michelin the Green Guide Switzerland (Michelin Green Guides).

1. I bought this guide because Eyewitness and Knopf do not make a guide to Switzerland. These are always my 1st choice. I guess I'm just a pretty picture addict. But I must say that this is a well-done book. It reminds me of the Baedeker's guides. In fact it's set up very similarly. The front section has information about Switzerland, history, famous people, plants, animals, etc. The center section contains information on places in Switzerland in alphabetical order. The back section contains helpful travel information. Things like traveling by plane, boat, car, train. It contains a listing of sights, their opening times and admission charges.

   They like Baedeker's, have a rating system for the various destinations with 3 being must see, and 1 being interesting. Keep in mind though when using these ratings that even if somewhere is rated 3 stars doesn't mean that it will be a 3 star experience for you. If the rating is for a modern art museum and you just "don't get it", then you probably shouldn't visit just on the strength of the book rating.

   Another helpful feature is a map giving tours. Unfortunately, the description of these tours leaves a little to be desired. They could use some fleshing out. The map is good but the written description is confusing and lacking.

   They do list restaurants and lodging for the more major destinations, but these are limited and you'd be better off using a book dealing specifically with lodging (I'm sure Michelin would suggest their Red Guide).

   Overall this is a good general, getting started guidebook. Not the best, but a good second choice.




2. I have been to Switzerland at least six times. Recently I sat down with my daughter who has worked at a hotel at Interlaken in Switzerland during her years in Business Administration at McGill - up to last summer - and we went over the Switzerland guides to see how they ranked, and what was currently the best guide in our humble opinions. We are not experts but have certain requirements and preferences. It helps if one can get a feel for the area in advance of a trip, and generally that is helped by good maps and color photos. So those guides do better in our review. We like to make reservations by internet and telephone and just use the Guide as a "guide".
   
   Generally it costs more to publish a book with color photos so when all else is reasonably equal, one feels that they get better value with a guide with photos. Also we wanted to see if the ambiance at certain hotels and resorts was accurately portrayed in the text based on our knowledge. So those aspects of the guides determine our ranking. Incidentally all the books are excellent. When we did our review the new DK Eyewitness guide was not yet available, but in any case it will be short, under 400 pages.
   
   For the Swiss guides we separated the guides into three groups, 5, 4, and 3 stars.
   
   5 Stars (this group has nice color photos plus maps and text).
   
   A. Green Guide to Switzerland published February 2001 by Michelin, 395 pages, $14., ranked 24,380 on Amazon.com, 0.64" x 9.4" x 4.7", lots of photos, maps, text, accurate portrayal of areas. Gives a nice idea of what you will find. Goes right down to small villages in detail even though it is just 395 pages. First choice.
   
   B. Lonely Planet Switzerland published July 2003, 335 pages, $ 14., ranked 29,913 on Amazon.com, .69" x 6.42" x 6.5". Solid effort, lots of good photos and descriptions.
   
   4 Stars (this group mainly text and maps).
   
   C. Rough Guide to Switzerland published June 2003, 704 pages, $13.27, ranked 30,209 on Amazon.com, 1.08" x 7.8" x 6.38". Solid effort lots of things to see and do and best "text and maps only" books.
   
   D. Frommer's Switzerland published February 2003, 512 pages, $15.39, ranked 47,638 on Amazon.com, 1.1" x 8.5" x 5.08". Similar to Rough Guide but shorter.
   
   E. Fodor's Guide to Switzerland 42 edition, published December 2002, 448 pages, $14.7, ranked highest in group on Amazon.com at 3,172, 1.2" x 8.98" x 5.01". The smallest in the group, do not know why it is so popular?.
   
   3 Stars
   
   F. Michelin Red Guide published in 2004, 563 pages but in four languages: Italian, French, German and English so English sections are just a fraction of the book.



3. General Overview:
   I traveled to Switzerland by myself in 2005. In preparation for my trip I bought two travel guides from amazon: Michelin's Switzerland: The Green Guide and Lonely Planet's Switzerland. I used both guides to aid me in deciding which cities I would visit during my two week vacation.
   
   Since I've bought and used other Lonely Planet guides (Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium and Luxembourg), I found myself relying more on the Lonely Planet Switzerland book than the Green Guide when planning my trip in advance. In fact, it was based on the Lonely Planet's great section on Lausanne that I opted to include that beautiful city as part of my holiday. However, I did make use of the Michelin Green Guide to supplement the Lonely Planet guide (particularly for scoping out Grindelwald, Zermatt, and Zurich). All of my actual hotel decisions were made using on-line reviews, but both guide books gave me a reasonable feel for how far it would be for me to walk from the train station to my hotel.
   
   I ended up bringing both books (both are small and light weight) with me on my trip, and found that I did not need either book during the day. In Switzerland most cities have a tourist information office located in the main train station. These offices provide free stadtplans (city maps) that point out major points of interest, and I found these maps were easy to fold into my back pocket and enabled me to "be bold" and head off in places that were only vaguely described in the guide books.
   
   Comparison of the Two Books:
   The Green Guide really seems to focus more on tourism where you have access to a car. All of the points of interest are linked to colorful major road maps, but the Green Guide is lacking in providing the foot/train traveler in good directions to and from the train stations. Lonely Planet guides tend to be made with this type of traveler in mind, and though the Lonely Planet does a great job in describing self guided walking tours through major Swiss cities it too would sometimes talk about interesting castles, glaciers, or ice caves without providing specific foot or public transit directions (I ended up just asking the locals for directions ... and the Swiss are very friendly and easy to talk to).
   
   Since part of my joy about experiencing Europe is living without a car, if I had to choose between the two guides, I'd recommend the Lonely Planet for most people. However, in describing where I went and actually reading about the people and land itself, the Green Guide is a much more complete book. When I return to Switzerland I'll be carrying the Green Guide and not the Lonely Planet. The maps are really much better in the Green Guide, and the first 75 pages of the book offer a very detailed and comprehensive primer on what makes Switzerland unique and worth traveling to!
   
   If you can afford both books, I would buy the Green Guide first and read those first 75 pages as a primer. Then I start reading the Lonely Planet and use it to help narrow down which cities you'll visit. Thought he Lonely Planet has some history information (~60 pages), it also mixes in general travel advice in the introduction to Switzerland section that really waters down the fun of reading about a new place!



4. This guide is OK. The pictures are nice. It includes a number of hotel and restaurant recommendations, but I think the attractions info is probably the most useful. But, that info is also available free on the net. I wish there was a little more info regarding how to use the trains.

No comments about Fodor's Poland, 1st Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides).

No comments about Michelin Guesthouses in France (Michelin Charming Guides).

No comments about The Rough Guide to Austria 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

4 comments about Literary Cafes of Paris.

1. Put this small guide in your pocket, order an expresso and croissant at the Deux Magots or Select, then read about what writers drank and wrote and met what friends at this same table. You will find a brief history, names of writers, and any dramatic events that occurred in these famous literary cafes--all of which still exist. Though the cafe where Hemingway and Fitgerald has changed its name several times, the wood and brass bar where the two men bellied up is still there just around the corner from the Dome. Bon appetit!



2. This is the first book to take to France with you (or to give to a friend who is going). The history is brief, but it goes back two centuries.



3. I stumbled across this little gem a few days before my wife finally dragged me to Paris in 1991. Lucky for me! Thanks to this work, we have come to love Paris, especially the Left Bank. Away from the tourist throngs, the reader can people watch and sip for literally hours reflecting upon Hemingway at the Brasserie Lipp, Picasso at the Cafe de Flore, Shirer at the Brasserie Balzar and so much more. It is truly amazing to me that these places still function just as they did 75 years ago and more. I considered myself a well educated and well traveled person, but this small volume has opened up a world that I knew about but never fully appreciated before and has made Paris one of my favorite vacation spots. To heck with the Louvre, this is what Paris is all about!



4. This wonderful little book makes a good companion for whichever Paris guidebook you plan to carry. It not only lists many interesting Cafes to visit, but also gives interesting background information on the famous writers and other celebrities who once hung out in them. It gives you an excuse to visit parts of Paris you might not otherwise visit. Great book.

1 comments about Connemara: Listening to the Wind (Connemara Trilogy 1).

1. From botanical treasure troves to pre-historical geology lessons, then onto oral history, social history and biography; this book of Robinson's ranges as widely and wildly as he does around Connemara, its past, present and future. This book is packed extraordinarily with facts, historical references and anecdotes woven together very deftly. Gladly it also includes an index and its sources are well referenced. This artfulness is possibly due to the author having such a wide range of interests and understanding that he is able to bring together and focus carefully and sharply on the area he now calls 'home'.
   
   There are wonderful diversions that provide their own intriguing association with the history of this part of Ireland. For example references to the Braun-Blanquet system of classifying plant communities and the "skirmish in the centuries-old philosophy wars between anglophone empiricism and continental metaphysics" (p233) and to Richard Berridge (an absentee landlord in Connemara) whose will included the princely sum of £46,000 in 1887 that went to the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine (flourishing still today) and £4,000 to The National Health Society to "collect and diffuse sanitary knowledge, and all other knowledge bearing on the physical and moral welfare of all classes of society;" (p352).
   
   For those that like a meandering tale teller, who packs his stories densely with research references and refrains from overwhelming you with their experience or perspective, these are stories to slowly but surely, work your way through. Robinson draws the reader along in a way that perhaps he also wends his way through the landscape he has settled in. In sharing his thoughts, learnings, the anecdotes of others and his passion for mapping, the writing is easy (in that the reader doesn't labour with it) and the reader is gently drawn into his learning and learnedness. In describing the effect of scientific mapping and investigation Robinson rather uncannily reflects his own approach to his storytelling of Connemara and its past:
   
   "The patient eyes of science disentangle the chaos of phenomena, naming, classifying, hypothesizing causal connections, reconstituting it as a highly individuated organic whole, fragile but adaptive, simultaneously rivalrous and convivial. Some may feel that this intellectual process distances one from reality, or reduces it, drives the spirit out of it, frightens the cuckoo out of the wood. But I have always found it a form of awareness, an introduction to wonder." (p383)

No comments about Insight Guides Iceland.

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

1. Page 67 of the book tells you to buy a voltage converter and that the input to the converter should be 110 and output is 220.'

   WRONG. The input voltage INTO the converter from the plug is 220 volts, OUTPUT, into the US device, is 110 volts. Be CAREFUL with that recommendation.

   Otherwise, a fairly typical unoffical guide - these City guides are useless for restaurants and hotels, there are so many dozens of nice local restaurants and hotels in every city in the world [except NYC which has maybe 20 decent hotels] thast I find you can save ALOT of money and get a nicer place just looking around a little.

   As for prices, BE CAREFUL to check prices for things in the USA. PAY in POUNDS and use a credit card- example is the Heathrow-London train - EurRail Same thing applies to London tube, ...

   Also, use your credit card to get cash in London, even with charges for cash advances and interest for a month, you'll save on getting ripped off at airport currency bootths or banks, esp. in the USA.




2. London turned out to be one of those places that I really enjoyed....and I believe it was made more enjoyable because we had done some research and planning before going. The Unofficial Guide provided information other than the mainstream stuff you read in all the other books. It added interested pieces of information that made even the planning process a pleasant one.



3. My wife, 3-year old son and I spent six months in London. We took 4 separate city guides with us, but consistently referred to the Unofficial Guide for the base of our information. Not only did we develop confidence in the recommendations (museums, restaurants, parks, transportation, and even medical assistance), we found the book easy to understand and navigate. I thank Lesley Logan and her publisher for an excellent book.



4. I bought 5 travel guides for London before my trip. They were all excellent guides & I enjoyed reading each of them. This book though was my FAVORITE by a long-shot!!! I read almost the entire book the day I received it, I had to make myself put it down to go to bed. It is full of interesting, useful & sometimes amusing information. My suggestion for anyone traveling to London is if you buy only one guide book that it be this one.
   
   All the guides were helpful in their own way, but the Unofficial Guide was helpful in all ways. It covers every area that you need for your trip. Airlines, weather, hotels, public transportation, children's London, and on and on and on!!! It gives ratings, operating hours, prices, touring tips, etc. Much more information than you can ever imagine.
   
   I could not have planned such a thorough & wonderful trip without this book. Many thanks to Lesley Logan for a fantastic, phenomenonally beneficial book that I also genuinely enjoyed reading!!!



5. This is an excellent, practical guide without all the fluff that is in many travel books. Very practical for reading before planning the trip and for carrying along during the trip to London.

1 comments about The Malt Whisky Map of Scotland.

1. If you are a single malt man or woman, you will love having this map! If you are just learning about single malts you will find it very helpful to keep straight the places it's made. If you a re a seasoned single malt fan you may end up using this map to plan your trip to the land of the thistle to see for yourself and to sample a wee dram.
   Happy map reading while you enjoy a tipple.

4 comments about Amsterdam Laminated Pocket Map by Pocket-Pilot.

1. Great pocket-sized map to carry along while exploring. Easy to read and lots of info included. Very useful. I bought one for each city I am traveling to.



2. this map is great, you can mark on it and clean it off, easy to read and fold back up, used it every day for a month.



3. I took this map along with us in Amsterdam, but I probably opened it twice- and both times it was in the hotel room. I generally like to memorize the areas before I travel somewhere, but this map did help with even the smaller alleys and roads that other maps just left off. However, the map is so big when it is unfolded that it makes it incredibly obvious to everyone that, yes, you are a tourist. To me, that's a sign for 'go ahead, pick-pocket me'.



4. Used this handy map for a short weekend trip. Easily pocket sized. As it's laminated, it's durable, even in the rain. Has good, easy to find 'highlights to see' tips. Nitpick: A few typos were found in some descriptions, but nothing too bad. Definitely would recommend.