Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Useful, but far below the Lonely Planet standard, February 28, 2001
I have always been a great admirer and user of Lonely Planet guidebooks, but this time they really produced a rather poor work. On one side I can't blame them, as the region is hard to get to know, and this probably remains the best guidebook about it anyway. On the other hand, lots of data are simply wrong, for which I can see no reasonable excuse. For example, the guidebook says that there are daily flights betwen Tbilisi and Yerevan, while there have been no scheduled flights since the collapse of the USSR in 1989 ! And contrary to what is written, KLM, Northwest or Alitalia have never flown to Yerevan. The guidebook says that there are buses from Armenia to Turkey, and on the very same page it also says that it is impossible to get from Armenia to Turkey except via Georgia... Overall, there is very little this guidebook can tell you on how to get around within the region. The guidebook gives plenty of information on hotels in Tbilisi which are supposedly good, while they are now filled by refugees (surely an interesting and touching thing to see, but not where you might wish to stay). The major internet café they recommend in Tbilisi does not exist. Many addresses are simply wrong (either old or non-existent). The book makes a lot of fuss about the corruption and unclear regulations of Armenian and other border officials, which is not the case (for example in Armenia you CAN get a visa at any border for 25 $ which is valid for 3 days, and when you leave you pay 3 $ for each day you oversayed your visa) - no corruption, no problems. The book gives lots of concerns about safety and other issues which are unnecessary, and especially in its Armenia section it seems to be biasedly 'anti-local' (something one would never expect from a guidebook). Overall, it seems poorly researched and not always well written. The chapter on Nagorno-Karabakh is ridiculously short (4 pages), not to mention the one on Abkhazia (less than two pages !). Nevertheless, some information is indeed useful and sometimes even correct, and you are better off taking this guide with you to the region, rather than being without it. Just take its advice with a lot of caution, and don't take any of its data for granted.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bit thin..., October 13, 2000
This guide book follows the standard Lonely Planet format of providing not only information about the country, but a wide selection of accommodation and tips for the independent traveller. In my opinion, it does a fair job. The book, however, has to compare to other guide books on the same region. And there are a few very good ones around, e.g. Roger Rosen and the Bradt book on Georgia, which did better. I found the book rather thin. It is full of useful facts, but failed to convey the magic of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. A good guide makes people who do not know the country at all want to go there. This one doesn't. Perhaps it would be better to beef it up a little in the next edition rather than concentrate only on listing towns.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great new edit, well worth buying, February 21, 2001
**Completely edited review for 3rd edition**
I'd give the new edition 4 or 5 stars, but Lonely Planet won't let me change that part of the review. It's a very solid guidebook now, packed with good information, maps, tips, and very good detail. I highly recommend it, especially for Armenia which I am most familiar with.
These 7 year old reviews for the first edition need to be removed, or associated only with that ISBN number, they are doing customers on Amazon a disservice here.
For those who want to supplement this book, "Rediscovering Armenia" is a free online wiki guide to Armenia's monuments.
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