Customer Reviews

Eyewitness Travel Guide to Budapest

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In preparing for a trip to Hungary, I examined thoroughly the choices for Budapest.

The Eyewitness Travel Guide on Budapest by Tadeusz Olszanski is the most eye-catching and the least helpful. It contains lots of graphics and diagrams and maps, and not too much information. Still, the most helpful section was the street index--something I hadn't seen in other books. The multitude of pictures are helpful in describing architecture, geography and art. On the other hand, its information on accomodations is very limited. Don't get me wrong; it's a beautiful and interesting book; it just is not as helpful as the other three. And it is two years old. I'm not necessarily saying that this book is bad, merely that it may not help you very much on the excursion.

The Frommer's Budapest book (3rd edition) gave the best information about finding and choosing accomodations, but the book has no pictures and aside from a nice subway cover on the inside cover, the maps are hard to find and not very easy to use. Frommer's gives excellent information about prices and shops and restaurants; it's almost a guide to buying things rather than a tour book. I didn't find it particularly thorough about travel information, customs, or those sorts of details. That is not entirely fair. They have a nice section in the front a kind of "best of" list for things in budapest. The nice thing about the book is that it recommends things to do if you have only one day, three days or a week. They also suggested some itineraries for walking tours.

The Fodor's Budapest pocket reference is drab and not full of much information. Don't get it.

My favorite guidebook series has been Lonely Planet, and the Budapest Lonely Planet is fairly helpful. Although it doesn't give as thorough a treatment on accomodations, the book gives a lot of hints and secret. I found its facts for the visitors to be the most helpful, and the maps (placed at the very back of the book) to be the easiest to use. The frommer book, on the other hand, put the maps close to the section of the book referring to it. The organization of LP makes it easiest to use in the field; they tend to have the best background, history and cultural information. It was particularly good about including rules, regulations and things like closing times. ON the other hand, there are not many photos, and they don't plan as many walking tours as the frommer book does.

The Budapest: A Critical Guide by Andras Torok, 4th edition is a less complete and more personal account of things to do in Budapest. The other books were like encyclopedias, but this book was just a few personal recommendations about things to do and places to stay. Also, the writing for this book seems to be better than the other books. If you already are a little familiar with Budapest, but just want to learn about new and undiscovered places, this might be an excellent book. It certainly covers most of the bases, but it just doesn't try to list a huge number of accomodations or restaurants.

I ended up buying the Frommer's and a used copy of the Eyewitness travel guide.

After visiting Budapest with this guide, I can assure you- it's the best guide out there on this city. In response to the previous reviewer who said "Vaci Street" was listed incorrectly. Actually, you are incorrect. There are "TWO" Vaci Streets in Budapest- an upper (open to traffic) and a lower (pedestrians only)- which is the famous shopping strip. This guide has them on the correct pages- you just missed the correct street because it is much smaller than the huge traffic ridden street to the north. This all was mentioned in the guide. It is wise to understand something before attacking it.

Furthermore- it is really highly unwise to rely soley on a travel guide when traveling...you completely lose the adventure.. For that reason- using a guide for resturants is perhaps foolish. I didn't even look at that section and I found several little "non tourist" resturants to eat. Budapest is packed to the hilt with eateries...they are not hard to find. Finding ones that aren't listed in travel guides- then you are getting real Hungarian food.

Part of traveling is discovering and relying entirely on a travel guide takes that away.

I recommend these guides for sites (because they have more than any other guides listed) and lodging (unless you want to stay in hostels).

This is a great guide- the best out there for Budapest- when used properly.

Architectural photos and text are useful, but otherwise information is riddled with errors (misspellings, misnamings of sites and other factual mistakes). For example the book mentions sites twice under two different wrong addresses. The book also states that visas are required for US citizens which has not been the case for many years. Also, almost all of the listed restaurants are tourist traps. I found this guidebook series very useful for other cities and countries (France, Vienna and Rome for example). I was very disappointed by this volume and I recommend that you choose another guidebook.

I love the Eyewitness series, but the Budapest guide seems like it was rushed into print without proper editing or proofreading. Map coordinates are incorrect, index entries don't appear in the text, and subway stops are mislabeled. For example, the coordinates for Vaci Street, listed as one of Budapest's "Top Ten Sights" are listed as "Map 2, F1 and F2." In fact, Vaci Street is located on Map 4, on the other side of town. This may not seem like a big deal until you waste a couple of hours schlepping yourself over to the wrong Vaci Street (there are two). If you need another example, look up the famous Kiraly Baths, another of "Budapest's Best," in the index, then try to find them in the body of the guide. They're not where they are supposed to be, on page 101, nor are they described -- except in passing -- anywhere else in the guide. The longer you spend in Budapest, the more mistakes you will discover in this guidebook. My recommedation: wait for the next edition.

This is a surprisingly effective and well-organized guide, with some interesting photos. If you're planning on spending just a few days in Budapest, then this compact little book will be indispensible in locating the famous streets and tourist sights. The maps are more than adequate and the walking descriptions to each locale are precise and accurate. There is also corresponding material on how to use the public transportation in the city and which station to take for each particular site. There is a separate chapter on the churches of the city with a brief ranking system for the nosiest places, the friendliest, the cheapest food, etc.

If you're planning a lengthy sojourn in Budapest or if you already know the city well, then this book would not be as helpful. It is solely intended for the casual tourist and there is little, if any, information on the intriguing environs of the city. Many of the best sites are neglected because most tourists don't want to bother or simply don't have the time to stick around. Still, this is a thrifty guide you can stick in your pocket and consult when you need to find a restaurant, beer haunt or hotel. In short, if you're a first timer to Budapest, enjoy one of the greatest cities in Europe and be sure to tuck away Olszanski's guide.

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Summary:
Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!

The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.

The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.

Specifics:

The guides are organized as follows:

How to use this guide
Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
............Introducing Budapest
........................Budapest on the Map
........................History of Budapest
........................Budapest at a Glance
........................Through the Year (events, holidays)
........................A River View of Budapest

............Budapest Area by Area, each section includes:
........................Introduction to street by street area
........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings

........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.
........................Further Afield (trips just outside Budapest)
........................Two Guided Walks (highly recommended)

Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
............Hotels
............Restaurants, bars, cafes
............Shops / Markets
............Entertainment

Survival Information
............Practical
........................Tourist info., Etiquete, Personal Security and Health
........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.
............Getting to Budapest
............Getting Around Budapest
........................Planes, trains and automobiles, signs
............Street Maps
............General Index
............Phrase Book (forget it.... Hungarian is very, very difficult to learn and pronounce!)
(My grandparents were from Hungary)

Discussion:
The book begins with "Introducing Budapest", including a complete map, a review, the city's history, and Budapest through the Year - including events, etc.

For the specific areas it provides an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or sections, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.

Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly. And, Budapest has a great architectural history.

The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions

The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.

Conclusion:
Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.

I agree with Mr. Bradley Kulman as well as with the reader from Prague who wrote on July the 10th, 1999 (Cfr. Supra.). In fact, I visited Budapest with this guide, just some days later: from July the 23th to the 27th. I also lived the "Vaci Utca adventure" related by my Prague's colleague. The most disapponting matter of this guide was, for me, the way they divided the city map in the "street finder" chapter, which is superb in other Eyewitness guides like Rome's. Maybe this is the worst Eyewitness Travel Guide (and I hope) ever.

If you've never been to Budapest before and want to squeeze a lot of sights into your visit, this is the book for you. It's very accessible what with the images of most major sights in the city. There's not much information to go with the pictures - just enough to satisfy those who want to see the sights but don't care to learn all about them. The real strength of the book is the section with the practical information. Pictures of post boxes and policemen and ambulance cars, a street index, a great variety in the hotel and restaurants index - this section alone is worth the money you spend on this book.

Probably the newest and freshest travel guide I've ever seen before. Looking through the dull, boring travel guides that usually line travel store shelves I thought this was a childrens book on Budapest. Upon opening this guide up, I was captivated. Every detail of the city and it's history from the beginning of time in color photographs along with every answer to any question one might have. They even show a graphic illustration picture of the streets they are talking about. A must buy, and they have guides for some 30 other places too. The info is so fresh that every phone number mentioned that I called worked still. Just buy it and you'll see, or you could always go back to listening to a pretentious travel agents view on the city.

Book was in very good condition and arrived in Canada much earlier than anticipated.

Thanks for the excellent service.