Customer Reviews

Frommer's London 2010 (Frommer's Color Complete)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My wife and I have been to London many times for both business and pleasure. Usually we make at least one trip a year at minimum. We have owned several different travel guides including older Frommers versions. This is probably the best Frommer's of the past few years due to the inclusion of more photo's but I would say if you are a veteran traveler to London this might not be as useful for you.

If you are a first timer to London this is a great guide. It will give you information on the major sites to see including useful information such as opening and closing times, costs, how to get to and from major tourist attractions and the best times to go. Overall this is a great guide for someone new to London who wants to see all the major sites. For you veterans there are probably better options.

One note. As others have mentioned there are several pages in this guide that actually are from the Paris guide. Check pages 281-296 as these are usually the pages which are actually for Paris. If you find this is the case just return your copy for a new one. Hopefully this has now been corrected.

There's nothing particularly wrong with this travel guide, except that it is so focused on hitting the major tourist attractions that it fails to convey the real attractions of London, which are the various neighborhoods and their particular charms. When Frommer's goes over the neighborhoods in brief, they mean it -- the section is brief. If you've never been to London, the guide is quite useful as it covers all of the highlights, but if you've been to London for more than a few days, you'll find this guide lacking. As just an example, in the section on shopping, there's a half-page on department stores, but while it lists Harrod's and Harvey Nic's, the best department store in London, Selfridges, isn't even listed. It's like a having a guide for Los Angeles and writing about Neiman Marcus but not Saks Fifth Avenue. Under the section on Clerkenwell two minor churches are listed, but Smithfield, a gorgeous set of buildings which now serve as London's central meat market but which historically was the site of major executions, including that of William Wallace, isn't even mentioned. There are a lot of "secondary"-type places listed, but there could have been more instead of some of the less useful info that's included.

The book devotes a fair amount of space to side trips from London, including, in a an apparent error on the part of the publisher, a section on Paris from their Paris guide instead of the planned sectioned on literary London. But really, while info on true day trips outside the city is great, much of the guide focuses on longer, overnight trips and I'd rather have more detailed info on London itself. They could have devoted a section to great city walking itineraries, and given info about guided walks around the city, such as the numerous ghost walks and pub walks available, which are truly fun. Frommer's and I do gree on one thing about London, though -- the best places to visit are totally free (like the British and National Museums).

If you've never been to London and like just being a tourist when you travel, this is a great guide, with plenty of useful advice such as how to buy theater tickets and detailed listings of places to stay and to eat. Since hotels and restaurants come and go, however, I prefer to use the internet for that and use my travel books for years as a guide to really getting to know a city. Also, this book does include a map, but if you're going to be in London more than a few days, buy a pocket version of London A-Z (pronounced "zed" in England), which is super-detailed and an absolute necessity.

Not my cup of tea as travel guides go, but plenty of people will find this friendly and useful.

American touring families, business travelers, students on educational holidays, and sailors on shore leave stand to gain from this guide. It takes a multi-pronged approach to London, taking in the posh and pricy alongside the cheap and kid-friendly, and making sure everybody has something to do. Lavishly illustrated and written with a strong opinion and sharp wit, it's a pleasure to read, even if you never have a chance to visit.

I pooh-poohed an earlier edition of this guide because it focused on the ritziest, priciest hotels and restaurants in town, and focused on sights so obvious and popular that most guide buyers wouldn't have much interest. Not this time. Though it means the book is now thicker (too big for most pockets), it makes up for that in being more thorough, and reaching out to blue-collar travelers in a way it didn't always in the past.

I also appreciate the fact that it covers regions of London often overlooked by tour guides, like Wapping and Southwark. For those who don't want the part of the city that's tragically hip and Botox-ridden, it casts its net wide enough to take in London's different aspects and age ranges. Though the enclosed foldout map only encompasses Central London, the text reaches far and wide in a way too few other guides do.

For fans of the muy mondo weird, sixteen pages of Chapter Seven have been mixed with the same pages from a Paris guide. I don't know how this happened, and it lacks the professionalism most of us expect from Frommer's. Still, that's sixteen pages out of over 450, so it could be a lot worse.

Chapters One and Two make for good reading, while the remaining chapters mainly reward casual browsing. Whether you're planning an imminent trip to London or you just want to drool over the possibilities after reading Jane Austen, this is a readable, fun guide for Anglophiles and casual glancers alike. Upbeat, spirited, and useful, anyone with even a passing interest in London will enjoy this guide.

Before buying a guidebook for any trip you need to ask yourself "What do I want to know?" If it's information on the sites, dining and hotel options, peppered with some interesting tidbits of information about the city and its historical sites, you really can't do better than Frommer's. Frommer's London 2010 (Frommer's Color Complete Guides) is no different. A visually appealing, informative guide, thick with details about London and the surrounding areas that would be helpful for any tourist to the area. What it doesn't offer is lots of budget options (you have to dig a bit deeper to search for those anyway...) or self-guided tour ideas, which for some... may be more of what they are looking for in a guidebook.

A suggestion...if you are a bit more adventurous and willing to take a different kind of journey (both in your guidebook reading and in your travels) and/or if you have seen London before or are a bargain hunter who needs to know where the deals are, consider also reading Rick Steves' London 2010. A more casual approach as guidebooks go, and sprinkled with humor and helpful suggestions for self-guided tours. I still think finding lodging deals is better done online, right before you go and that no guidebook can really give you current information on that particular part of your trip.

In short, Frommer's London 2010 is an excellent offering as guidebooks go, but it's not perfect for everyone.

First of all, my book does have the correct pages - no Paris pages by mistake for pages 281-296 so that problem appears to have been corrected.

I like the size and weight of this book. It's compact but hefty with a plethora of information about London. I have never been to London but this book has me wanting to go very badly! Even if you never use this book to tour London, just reading it gives one a great education about London. Many historic buildings are listed with some historic information given about each one. For example, the "Benjamin Franklin House" listed on page 275 says this:

"The only surviving home of Benjamin Franklin in London opened as a museum in 2006. Off Trafalgar Square, the modest four-story brick building was Franklin's residence from 1757 to 1775, when he was diplomat on behalf of American colonists. Curators call the house "the first defacto U.S. Embassy." The building was also the site of many of Franklin's scientific experiments. It was here that he invented bifocal glasses and created the ethereal-sounding musical instrument, the glass harmonica...(and more...)"

This book is loaded with information of all sorts, places to stay, restaurant to eat at, whether the places are expensive or not, very detailed maps plus a big pull-out map in the back of the book, color pictures on nearly every page, the best things to do for free or almost, and an extremely inclusive index in the back. I have two small kids so knowing about accommodations, best activities, restaurants, sights and attractions, and traveling with minors sections are very useful to me. I love this book! I think it is very informative and I can find nothing to complain about.

Especially spotty was coverage of cheaper hotel options both within the city and readily available a few tube stops out of the city. The restaurant listings were alright, though perhaps not conveying the excitement of how truly 1st rate London is now in terms of culinary options. Again, less expensive places were slighted by omission, but this is the world's foremost restaurant city today so your chances are pretty good if a place has managed to stay in business... Tourist coverage was good, but fairly obvious, so this is best for the first time visitor who is looking for a first pass on museums, cultural institutions, and general sightseeing.

My copy of the book had sections of the Paris guidebook interspersed through chapter seven, but this is likely to be just a problem with the one printing. Return and exchange your copy if you have a similar problem.

Frommer's London 2010 is loaded with valuable, current information, but has a few significant omissions and one serious flaw. The 16 page section on literary London and "a money-saving pass" is missing and replaced with a portion of Frommer's Paris guidebook - apparently in most if not all of the first printing.

I had read half a dozen guidebooks for a 2008 London trip, and was eager to discover new recommendations to help plan a spring 2010 visit. Indeed, in Frommer's London, I picked up a dozen useful gems, such as the Tate to Tate boat linking the two museums, and the yotel, a hotel with 75 feet square rooms for sleeping, rentable by the hour in Gatwick airport.

For the most part, Frommer's London 2010 has all you would want in a guidebook - descriptions of key attractions with suggestions for visiting including hours and costs, large neighborood maps, recommended hotels and restaurants organized by vicinity and price, money-saving hints, transportation information, and even a shopping guide including such venues as museum shops, mapstores and vintage clothing shops. Discussions of the highlights of many London neighborhoods whet the appetite for exploration. Did you know, for example, about the Keats House and Freud Museum in Hampstead, or Karl Marx's tomb in Highgate cemetery?

I was pleased to make these discoveries, but since I will be spending time in Camden and Islington, I was disappointed that neither were covered. Indeed, the book concentrates so fully on central London and its contiguous areas, that it neglects to discuss some parts of the London which are only a short Tube ride from the center. Yet it also includes a chapter on sidetrips from London - Windsor and Eton, Oxford and Cambridge, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Salisbury and Stonehenge. At least, it is so loaded with links to helpful London websites that the reader can easily uncover sources of information not provided.

Frommer's is also rich in background material. A lengthy section on London history covers literature, architecture, film, tv and music as well as politics, and provides book recommendations. The guide to London food, eco-friendly travel suggestions, and recommendations for black, elderly, gay, disabled and solo travelers are worthy additions, as is the cellphone and cybercafe information. I also appreciated the little hints that can save hours of frustration - such as to bring the generic names of prescriptions, and be aware that some new credit card machines are geared to chip-embedded credit cards rather than those with magnetic-strips.

A full-size foldout map inserted into the book details streets and attactions, but is lacking a very important feature - a map of the Tube, London's underground transportation system. Indeed, I was appalled to find no Tube map within the book, and just one 4x6 map on the inside back cover with type so small (2 point?) that I doubt it could be read with a magnifying glass. Fortunately, readers can rely upon [...] to plan accommodations and itinerary in relation to the subway system, but this lack of a readable and full-size subway map is a serious flaw.

I also would have appreciated more listings for low-cost lodgings, since there are a few dozen adequate if not impressive choices for a traveler on a strict budget who wishes to spend no more than 65 pounds or $[...] a night for a room.

Frommer's London 2010 has much to offer the London traveler but has a few significant omissions. A conscientious traveler relying on this book might wish to carry along a supplementary guidebook to greater London - and a large, readable subway map.

Because I'm a travel photographer, I tend to gravitate to travel guides that have a lot of photos in them. While this book doesn't have the exhaustive photographic coverage that say, Insight Guide London (Insight Guides London), it still has enough nice photos related to the text to give you a nice feel for what different neighborhoods and landmarks look like up close. And personally, I think if you're visiting a city like London for the first time, seeing pictures of it is a great way to feel more comfortable going there.

This book is very heavy on hotel and restaurant information and if reading about restaurants is something you like to do before a trip, you'll like this book. In fact, there is so much restaurant info that after a while I found it a bit annoying. There are also chapters on planning a trip and a good chapter on exploring.

Overall, it's another good book from Frommers and regardless of what type of guide you like, you'll find a bit of everything covered in this book. And if you need to know where to find a good Indian meal or local beer, this is your book.

We buy Frommer's guides every few years, usually before a trip to a foreign country or big city. Every guide hits the high spots of a two weeks trip - culturally and socially, whether you travel as a family, a single person, a student, etc. No way to lose, really - this is the one pocket guide we carry around with us everywhere we go on vacation, especially overseas. FYI, a lot of their information is also available online at Frommers online.

Excellent guide to seeing London.

Frommers has recently come out with more "Best-Loved Driving Tours" series ... guides that are not very inexpensive, but are very well researched and quite comprehensive. One will have plenty of driving tours and routes to chose from, whether you like arts and museums, scenic roads and breathtaking views, urban towns and shopping, or just want to experience a regione's culture and life.

Unlike the other Frommer guides that are fatter and heavier, this little book gives you not too many specifics on lodging or eating. It is geared strictly for the person behind the wheel and her or his passengers.

I have had a great experience using this guide and will recommend it to anyone who can afford it. Also, you might want to check to see if your library carries it and check it out for the duration of your visit abroad.

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).