Customer Reviews

Germany (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are heading to Germany you must get this guide. It was very helpful in planning a trip from Berlin to Munich and the Bavarian Alps. It lays out towns in Germany and what to see in each. We stopped at some wonderful villages on the way and this guide could not be beat. The region by region analysis is great and is useful for planning if you are only heading to one area. If you are just going to Berlin I would get their Berlin guide as this would be a little too much. Otherwise this is the only guide to use for a trip to Germany.

My work has provided me with the opportunity to travel a good bit. I am the type of person who wants to get a working background for my destinations, both in terms of history and geographic layout. Because I work, I don't have a great deal of time to spend reading and studying different, often lengthy, travel guides before or during my trips.

Because these guides are concise, beautifully illustrated, relatively compact, and impeccably organized, I cannot recommend highly enough the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guides! The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide is THE guide I buy for every destination. Not only do I get a quick history and background of the destination, but I also will be provided with a visual guide to everything. The visual detail is really what sets the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides apart.

The street maps of common destination points are drawn in dimensional detail so you will visually recognize when you "get there." This is particularly helpful when you don't speak the native language.

The regional maps are colorful and concise. And the drawings associated with attractions like museums allow the traveler who is short on time to quickly see the best of the museum within the time the traveler has to spend.

Each DK Eyewitness Travel Guide has a good summary section in the back with practical information about where to eat, where to sleep, what to do, and how to get around.

While I may supplement the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide with others for a more detailed travel guide, the other guide is only more to read, not more to see. Buy the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide first for any destination.

I heard about DK guides through several friends of mine.

I visisted Munich and Bamburg. I found the pictures and recommended walks to be very helpful.

I have two major issues with the guide. The first is that it is light on hotels and restaurants. Their idea of moderately expensive is also outside of the range of most younger travelers. Their hotel and restaurant recommendations are, however, very well suited to couples and well-off travelers. Unlike Lonely Planet Guides, DK focuses on the sites and culture of the locations in it. It does not go into internet sites, hostels, laundry sites or rail/bus information. This makes is slightly incomplete for less structured travelers, like myself.

This focus on the cultural aspects of locations at the expense of more extensive travel data, however, makes this book nice and compact and much easier to carry around than the Lonely Planet guide. The cover is tough and durable and has very well designed flaps for marking your location.

My second issue came when I visited the city of Bamburg. I decided to do this at the last minute and so this book was my only guide. I took the railroad and was disappointed when I looked at the map and found that it focused only on the town center and did not show such useful information as to where I was when I stepped out of the railroad station. I had to purchase another map for what was a fairly simple city. I also found my own hotel as the cheapest one in the book for Bamburg was 110 Euros for a single person room. The guide also only gave passing mention to the breweries that made Bamburg famous and did not recommend any or give locations. While I admire architecture and churches, Bamburg is famous for its rauch beer and breweries and these are significant cultural aspects too.

I love the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides for several reasons: color photos, background/history, maps/drawings of destinations, color coded sections, front and back flaps can be used as page markers (plus that's where they put the symbols for the descriptions).

My only dislikes are the weight (they can be hefty, use Rick Steve's advice on either tearing out what you need or, my preference, copy the pages you'll be using instead of lugging a heavy guide with you) and the author assumes we've all got loads of cash. I too, want out of the way places to stay and eat.

As always the eyewitness travelguides are superb. This Germany travelguide meets the expectations i have placed into the exewitness series and is very up-to-date.

I purchased this book as a guide, but found it was probably better than any "personal" guide as it is heavily stocked with beautiful pictures, maps, diagrams, and descriptions of castles and other sites.

I like the way the country is sectioned off...by region, etc. At the back of the book are great traveler tips and a list of lodging and dining recommendations.

The size of the book is traveler friendly too with a water-proof cover. This would fit nicely in a woman's purse.

This is a beautiful and handy book to look at even if you don't plan to go anywhere.

Is this is the first time you 're looking for a tourist guide...don't look anymore, this is the one you want. I was looking for a good guide to go around Germany, while I'm here, and this one just work perfectly me, it gives you a little map of the mayor cities with all the hot spots and an introduction to German history in general and useful travel tips, they also cover all the german states... beautifully illustrated, with a lot of pictures and very useful information. It's an awesome guide!!

I find DK eyewitness travel guides the best way to get to know a country and to plan a trip around it. The books about a certain city are definitively the best I've ever read. However, in this particular case of Germany, I think they didn't achieve that level of perfection noticed in other guides. The problem is that there are so many places to visit in Germany that they simply do not fit in a pocket sized guide. Therefore, the lack of space is paid with lack of useful information and the whole guides results extremely good for having an overview of Germany and planning your trip, but almost useless by the time you get there. Say you decide to visit Stuttgart, Munich Nuremberg and Berlin; then you'll be using no more than 25% of this guide. That means, a lot of useless weight on your backpack.

The only reason I don't give this guide (or series of guides) a 5 Star rating is that they are VERY HEAVY to carry around... we take Rick Steves and sections from Frommers Guides with us, and to a lesser extent we tear out pages from this guide. It is a very well put together guide, glossy photos, maps etc. and a Must Buy BEFORE you leave to help with planning... in another year or two maybe it will come as an "app" for the IPhone/ITouch so the weight issue won't be a problem when deciding on what to pack. Till then, study it... tear out pages to bring... and dream about places you may never visit!

I liked this book because of it's detail on the architectural structures and that it grouped everything by county so I can pick and choose what to see in the counties I'll be near.

I've been to Germany a few times and know how to get about and whatnot. I bought this book because it focused on the cities and things to see in the cities - city by city and county by county. I really liked its focus on the architecture of Germany, which I love, and am glad I got it for this reason. You can travel almost anywhere in Germany and love it but it's my goal to see as many churches and cathedrals as possible because each has its own personality and is something to be remembered. It's really light on hotels and places to eat, but you can always find a B&B or hotel online prior - hotels in books are always pricey and I'm a cheap traveler. Ask locals where to eat for good, traditional German food because they'll point you in the right direction. If you want a book to tell you about hotels and restaurants, go with Rick Steves because that's a major focus for his books.

I gave it 4 stars because it is light on the travel aspect, but it's perfect for the experienced traveler who wants to see the history and monuments of Germany. Some of the pictures are pretty old and grainy, too.