Customer Reviews

Frommer's Europe 2004

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

 

 

From all the travel books out there on Europe this one is not a compilation of mere facts, photos, phone numbers and page-fillers.

What sets Frommer's apart is the information provided and the style in which is presented. You will find lodging options for various budgets, a list of most important sites to see and even suggested ways to spend time in a city if you have only 1 day or as much as 5 days, great places to eat and great places to splurge if you can stretch your dollar. Be aware that this is not a book for the ones on a shoestring budget. Frommer provides a good introduction to Europe without being overloading you with mass amounts of information or pictures, a truly well-balanced book.

When I backpacked 4 months through Europe I had a copy of the Lonely Planet for Europe (a thick and heavy book) because it covered more cities and esoteric towns, a ripped chapters of all the international youth hostals Europe of the countries I visited, and as primary guide for nominal cities and capitals I used Frommers (ripped the book and kept only chapters of countries planning to visit - so I can keep the weight down).

Good and useful maps, info on cities and must see sites as well as out of town places to visit if time permits, including how to get there. Good tips on the arts, music, food, transportation. A must read before leaving on the trip.

Def not a good book for those who don't like to travel to just the big cities. It has a basic synopsis of 2-3 major cities in each of the countries. It mostly focuses on hotels and restaurants instead of sights. A better book to buy is Lonely Plants On a Shoestring, it at least gets cities that aren't complete tourist attractions and gives you some sights to see. It's sad that I now have to buy a book specifically for each country that I'm going to visit and so far that's gonna be over 7 books to tote around. Def save your money and do internet research or get lonely planets book

In Europe now for almost 2 years I have done a lot of page flipping with this book ... back and forth...searching for useful information. There is some but certainly not worthy of over one thousand pages. Now I am headed for France and this will be my first time in Paris and was planning a trip to Normandy so I opened my book and there is absolutely no mention of anything. They have a map of France with some of the cities in this region and have chose to exclude everything else. I have heard so much about the museums and memorials, as well as the towns, scenery and atmosphere of this region. It is a shame this book does not describe it. 2 stars for effort...but my niece came to visit during her Europe trip and she had Rick Steves Travel Book...she loved it.

In a guidebook that covers an entire continent (well not quite, but I return to this below) you can't expect details on every village. The information on all important destinations is there. Cities from the main ones like Paris and Rome, to the small but well known ones like Bruges, Verona or Regensburg are all covered. The detail of city coverage is very high. Sure, they could have covered many more places but only briefly. They chose to cover the main sites, but ALL the main sites and in detail. I think this works better for most tourists.

One problem is that the title is misleading. It covers WESTERN Europe. The "old" EU, plus the Czech Republic and Hungary. Most "new" European destination - some very popular now, are not covered at all (there are two pages on each country not covered in the book). This means the book omits Poland and Romania or cities such as Moscow in Russia or Odessa in Ukraine. All popular with tourists from Western Europe and also up-and-coming for US tourists. I think some cities from eastern Europe should be added - like Cracow, and some regions - like the now very hip Transylvania. However this book is good for the "classic" Europe and as you can view the table of contents, the fact that the title is misleading is not an issue on Amazon, I think taking of stars for this would be wrong.

Gave this as a gift to a friend who traveled Europe for 3 months on a study abroad program with her college. She used it every step of the way. Some people just don't think to buy something like this for traveling because they don't know that it even exists!

Perhaps I was expecting too much but I felt it was very light! I didn't even highlight the all the big city areas in italy. It is a very fat book and I should have realized it couldn't possibly list all the major cities of all the countries in Europe but I was disappointed.

This guide is full of information but it lacks of suggested city itineraries, instead it has a comprehensive list of companies with their phone numbers (like american express) that you can easily find at any corner when travelling. I expected more info on clubs, restaurants, bars, shopping centres, etc.

I purchased this book because of a cruise I will be taking in the fall. I was looking for background on all the countries I would visit in Europe. This book has nothing on Poland--only listed on the map. Otherwise I felt there was a lot of excellent information.

A good travel guide. Read it before you go and it will save you time and money