Customer Reviews

Greece Athens & the Mainland (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This series has become the only travel guide I buy when traveling to a foreign country. What makes this guide stand out compared to the competition are the color pictures, color maps, and equivalent Greek spelling of a location, and street by street attraction descriptions. Long after the trip is over, looking at this guide is like looking back at the pictures taken during the trip. The cover is practically waterproof, and contains a fold out on the front and back so that you can bookmark 2 sections. There is a nice chapter on the history and culture of Greece, and then focuses on a geographic region of the mainland. It also contains recommended hotels, restaurants, shopping, and essential travel tips and local customs within the country. Additionally, it has a small language/phrase reference guide and country highway/road map in the back.

By using this travel guide, we've always created our own trip itinerary, and have never had the desire to those long guided bus tours that most people take.

Additional Notes: Remember this is mainly for Athens and the mainland - not for island hopping. Also, before traveling to the Greece, make sure you teach yourself to read the Greek alphabet so that you read/recognize the local signs. Even though many signs are in English - the spelling will not match English guidebooks and you'll be proud of yourself that you can actually recognize Greek characters!

I usually use Lonely Planet and Green Guide (Guide Vert) but I read a lot of negative reviews about LP, so I gave Eyewitness a try. The photos and diagrams were fantastic - they really helped me make some choices about what to see compared to LP. And I particularly appreciated the diagrams of how many of the ancient sites such as Corinth, Delphi, and Olympia used to look, because you need some help when you see these ruins. Neither LP or Green Guide had these consistently.

My main problem was that it didn't have a lot of useful information, or if it did it was hard to find. The book's organization isn't too good - for a given site or city it has information about the city in terms of tourism or practical all over the place. Green Guide has much better practical maps, which are in color and cover a larger geographic area. Eyewitness is great when you get to the site you want to see, but it is not so useful to find the sites.

Also, compared to LP and Green Guide it has a lot less historical and explanatory information. And in terms of total number of places covered, I have the impression that Eyewitness has less than others. There's a price for nice, glossy photos.

Finally, not that it's critical, but my binding broke within a day, though the book cover mostly kept the book together.

I think I will only buy Eyewitness again in special circumstances.

Greece Athens & the Mainland (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
I have bought several eyewitness books for traveling. For me when you have tour guide talking or as you are getting around on your own, the ability to get a short history of what you are looking at is very helpful. I don't care to read a long history at the scene, I usually do that before I travel. Eyewitness really helps for these trips.

The tourbook is organized very well with history, maps, restaurants, hotels, etc and the colored pictures are excellent. The size makes an ideal companion when travelling.

It is a shame that DK publishing divides Greece into two separate books, one for the mainland and one for offshore islands. It forces you to buy and carry both books for complete coverage of the country. Even places that are quite close to each other geographically are in separate books, if one happens to be on the mainland, and the other on a nearby offshore island.Greek Islands (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

I just love the DK Travel books. Very informative, in details with history information, beautiful pictures, easy to read and handy-size to carry along.

Out standing guides book for travel and visit Greece. Must have this book and I highly recommended.

We are sold on the Eyewitness series of travel books. Very up to date and full of great travel information. We do not purchase travel books for hotel reviews or restaurant reviews as these two chaneg too much for us. The information you get in Eyewitness books is up to date and accurate. We also get free shipping at Amazon with a Amazom Prime membership.

We bought this so that we would have a guide to the Thessolinikki area. Haven't taken the trip yet, but it looks like it will work for us like all of the other Eyewitness Guides have.

I have several of the Eyewitness travel guides. The are wonderful resources for planning travels and reminiscing!