Customer Reviews

Frommer's Belgium, Holland & Luxembourg (Frommer's Complete Guides)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I used this guide book during a recent trip to the Benelux region of Europe. I found the book useful in helping me pick out good restaurants. It also listed the major sites I wanted to see. I did not find the book useful in reserving hotels and describing each site. I especially found the maps to be of poor quality. Many of them mislabeled the location of sites and failed to include important street names that would make it easier to find sites, restaurants, and accomodations. As a frequent traveler, I rely on good maps in guidebooks to get around cities that are unknown to me. Frommer's got me to take wrong turns repeatedly.

Unfortunately, there do not seem to be many books out there covering exclusively the Benelux region of Europe. At least I did not find any that I liked, so Frommer's was the best choice among many bad choices.

It is nice to have all the great cities and towns of Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Luxembourg area covered in one handy book. Good maps and suggestions for "best of" experiences. There are seperate maps for attractions, hotels and restaurants in each city. Hotels and restaurants are listed by price range, and family-friendly establishments are noted. There is not a lot of historical background given in this book, and no photographs. The writing style is clear and direct and not too dry. I found the recommended hotels in Amsterdam to be booked up months in advance- obviously many are following Frommer's advice!

When I first started travelling to Europe 25 years ago, the Frommer guides were like beacons. They had a very definite goal in mind: To let you enjoy Europe for $XX dollars a day. Their books were fun and informative; but somewhere along the line, the Frommer people lost touch with their leadership.

When you try to write a book for everybody, you wind up writing for nobody. Let us take accommodations as an example: They are classified as Expensive, Moderate, and Inexpensive. Now I am not on public assistance by any means, yet I can barely afford Frommer's Inexpensive accommodations, which average around more than $100 a night.

There are guidebooks which are good at accommodations and restaurants but not on sights; and there are others (like the superb DK Eyewitness Guides) which concentrate on the sights. I am hard put to place Frommer on this spectrum. In the Netherlands, he downplays the Zuider Zee Museum in Enkhuizen and the Open Air Museum in Arnhem, yet spends 3 chapters on Luxembourg, including one on "Planning a Trip to Luxembourg." Hello! When was the last time you got the wife and kiddies mobilized for a fun filled 3 week vacation in the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg?

On the plus side, the "Best of..." lists are a useful counter to the general lack of emphasis in this guidebook.

If you were visiting the U.S., you would want a guidebook to show you why you might want to spend more time in New York than Youngstown. Once the best of guidebook series, Frommer has been reduced to cataloguing sights. Where's the excitement? Not here.

very complete, the classification by stars is very useful to schedule the attractions. It's very clear, well separeted and easy to read and browse.

I reccomend it.

Having just returned from a visit to the Netherlands and Belgium, we found this paperback guide to be very useful, particularly in regard to day trips and sites a bit off the beateb track. While it is easy to find information about popular sites, we often got the lowdown on less well-known places such as Kasteel de Haar in the Netherlands, a great castle which we didn't read about anywhere else. We didn't stay at any of the listed hotels, but did use restaurant recommendations with success. Appendices on history were well written and fun too. Recommended.

We traveled to Brussels and Ghent in August and used this guide extensively. I definately would recommend this for your travels to Belgium!