Fodor's Exploring London, 4th Edition (Exploring Guides) [Paperback]

Fodor's (Author)

Book Description

Series: Exploring Guides | Publication Date: March 14, 2000

Fodor's Exploring LondonPraise for Fodor's Exploring Guides

"Authoritatively written and superbly presented...Worthy reading before, during, or after a trip." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"Absolutely gorgeous. Fun, colorful, and sophisticated."  --  Chicago Tribune

Fodor's Exploring Guides are the most up-to-date, full-color guidebooks available. Covering destinations around the world, these guides are loaded with photos, essays on culture and history, descriptions of sights, and practical information.  Full-color photos make these great guides to buy if you're still planning your itinerary (let the photos help you choose!), and they are perfect companions to general guidebooks, like Fodor's Gold Guides.

What to SeeExtraordinary coverage of history and culture
Itineraries, walks and excursions, on and off the beaten path
Architecture and art
Where to Stay
Quick tips in every price range
Where to Eat
Savvy picks for all budgets
The Basics
Getting there and getting around
When to go, what to pack

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Fodor's Exploring LondonPraise for Fodor's Exploring Guides

"Authoritatively written and superbly presented...Worthy reading before, during, or after a trip." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"Absolutely gorgeous. Fun, colorful, and sophisticated."  --  Chicago Tribune

Fodor's Exploring Guides are the most up-to-date, full-color guidebooks available. Covering destinations around the world, these guides are loaded with photos, essays on culture and history, descriptions of sights, and practical information.  Full-color photos make these great guides to buy if you're still planning your itinerary (let the photos help you choose!), and they are perfect companions to general guidebooks, like Fodor's Gold Guides.

What to SeeExtraordinary coverage of history and culture
Itineraries, walks and excursions, on and off the beaten path
Architecture and art
Where to Stay
Quick tips in every price range
Where to Eat
Savvy picks for all budgets
The Basics
Getting there and getting around
When to go, what to pack

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

London Is... Tradition

From double-decker buses to soldiers dressed in red tunics and bearskin helmets guarding Buckingham Palace, London is a city steeped in tradition and pageantry. No matter what time of year you visit, there is bound to be some colorful event going on.

The most famous of London's regular events is the Changing of the Guard. It is worth remembering that this takes place in several different locations. In summer the crowds at Buckingham Palace often block the view, and you may prefer the alternative ceremonies at Whitehall or St. James's Palace, while the hour-long event at Windsor Castle, with its marching bands and music, is perhaps the best of all.

London Is... Styles and Trends

London is a style capital, giving birth to new ideas that become international fashions. London's position was established during the 1960s style revolution, epitomized by the Beatles and Mary Quant, and confirmed during the emergence of punk in the 1970s, when designers from Tokyo to New York embraced black clothes with studs, zips and safety-pin decoration. Today, London continues to lead in fashion, music, and art of all kinds.

Dynamic Variety

Changes in the 1990s have prepared the city for the 21st century. London is alive with creative talent working in all styles, leaving Londoners free to enjoy their individuality and particular tastes. London Fashion Week is an important event, when young British designers set the tone for world fashion. Art and crafts are so lively that east London now supports the largest community of artists in Europe, an estimated 10,000 people. Music is vibrant in all its forms -- jazz, pop, rock, reggae, trance, salsa, hip hop, garage, house, jungle and many others, reflecting the cosmopolitan culture of the capital, and the consequent club scene is large, fast and ever-changing. Theater follows a similar pattern, with landmark, innovative productions staged from the top Royal National Theatre down to the small fringe theaters. Restaurants, which burgeoned in the 1990s while undergoing a welcome revolution to find more authentic ingredients and recipes, now offer quality dishes from almost all the world's food traditions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Fodor's; 4 edition (March 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679004785
• ISBN-13: 978-0679004783
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,815,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Start packing your bags . . ., August 18, 2003

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Fodor's Exploring London, 5th Edition (Exploring Guides) (Paperback)

I won't be going back to Britain this year (or probably anytime soon, unfortunately), but I've been a London junkie for a couple of decades and I'm always interested in what travel books and touring guides have to say about the city. Of course, everyone wants something different from a travel book. I'm mostly interested in historic locations and rubbernecking generally, not in where to eat and sleep and shop for souvenirs, so the balance among types of information in the Fodor's "Exploring" series suits me just fine. First, there's a good general introduction on politics, recent immigration, styles & trends, and London's apparent rush to knock down its history in favor of turn-of-the-21st-century garish architecture, followed by a short but equally good survey of the city's cultural and social history. At the back is a very brief guide to accommodations, dining, shopping, and "travel facts," but you're usually better off with an annually updated quick guide for assistance in those areas. (Take a look at schedules and reviews in the Saturday Times and the Sunday Evening Standard, too.) It also would have been helpful to include addresses of a few of the many official and commercial trip-planning web sites for London that are now available. (Try London.Net.) The bulk of the book is organized by neighborhood -- thirteen of them, so there's quite a bit of detail wherever you might be spending your day. Sidebars throughout provide information on such things as the role of gentlemen's clubs, regularly scheduled arts festivals, and the history of "Bedlam," which is exactly the kind of thing my sort of visitor finds fascinating. There are also plenty of detailed street maps, though you will definitely want to acquire a proper fold-out map, plus a London Transport map (because even native Londoners can get lost in the twistier areas). To pick nits: I wish they had included more about the Underground system and its history instead of just giving describing the fare zone system and advising you to use a Travelcard and to avoid the rush hour. And how could such a history-heavy guide omit London Stone and the Roman wall? Nevertheless, this is an excellent and well-written guide. Also, Fodor's used to skimp on photos, and what they did include were generally in black-and-white, but this volume is packed with artfully cropped and arranged pictures on heavy, slick paper. Very nice indeed.