Lonely Planet Netherlands [Paperback]

Ryan Ver Berkmoes (Author), Jeremy Gray (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lonely Planet Netherlands | Publication Date: January 2001

Contains detailed information on cycling through the country; accommodation options from camping to five-star hotels; a special section on one of the country's icons - windmills; and all the entertainment options, from coffee shops and brown cafes to opera and classical music.

Editorial Reviews

Review

As usual the guide-book standard is set by Lonely Planet

-- Outside

From the Publisher

From deeply historic cities such as Haarlem, Leiden and Delft and the vibrant city of Rotterdam to the cosmopolitan wonders of Amsterdam and The Hague, Lonely Planet’s "Netherlands" is an indispensable guide, allowing you to experience all that the Netherlands has to offer. At the great museums of Den Haag you can see the masterpieces of Rembrandt and his contemporaries. Near Arnhem you can see one of the world’s finest collections of Van Gogh at a museum in the middle of a delightful national park. Amsterdam’s phenomenal and diverse nightlife is world-famous, but the Dutch countryside is another treat! The Dutch practically live on bicycles, so bike trails abound and Lonely Planet has mapped out the best of the best in "Netherlands". Happy trails!

• 45 maps including eight color Amsterdam city maps• accommodation options from trekkershutten to five-star hotels• the background on windmills – how they work, where to find them • all the entertainment choices, from coffee shops and brown cafes to opera and classical music• the lowdown on where to see Dutch art from Rembrandt to Mondriaan • special cycling section

Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0864427050
• ISBN-13: 978-0864427052
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,598,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JEREMY GRAY was born of English parents in Louisiana. He began his writing career at news agencies, working at Agence France Presse and Bloomberg in Germany before moving to The Financial Times in Amsterdam. Over the past decade Jeremy has written travel guides for Lonely Planet, Dorling Kindersley and National Geographic, and contributed travel photography to publications around the globe. Learn more about Jeremy at www.jeremyjgray.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and thorough, but prices are outdated., February 27, 2003

By 

Eran Cohen (Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Netherlands (Paperback)

General background -
================
The Lonely Planet Guides contain a lot of information. They are supposed to be of help to the common backpacker. However, due to the extensive coverage they offer about the countries they discuss, they can also be a very good source of information to travelers with greater means that are interested in a thorough coverage of their destination. Moreover, they can be of use to persons that are interested in learning about the country as a starting point for further studies.

When the reader wishes to travel he has two options of dealing with the wide-ranging material:
1. To read the book almost cover to cover in advance, aiming at planning the trip down to the last small detail while learning a lot about the country - culture, history, climate, geography, conduct and so forth.
2. To read the essential highlights from the book using the contents - in a relatively short time - aiming at learning the basic information needed for getting a good head start (forget about the long "facts About" chapter). Upon getting there it is easy to use the guide on a daily basis for further information.

The guide -
========

This guide is a very good one with one major flaw that can't be disregarded: the prices are given in Guilders, more than a year (!) after the country has completely converted to Euros, since the edition hasn't been updated since the 1st of January 2001. That fact poses a great difficulty at planning the budget for the trip (add to that the considerable rise of prices since the transition to the Euro). This is a serious letdown and not something you would expect from a distinguished publication house. Hopefully they will release a second edition soon.

Aside from the problem mentioned above, the guide is a real help for the traveler; the information and recommendations in the different sections were most helpful and the proved accurate. A good example is the emphasis that is given to a certain rental bike service at Amsterdam that offers no advertising for itself on the bicycle, and keeps many preying eyes away from the bike. The pictures presented inside are well taken and offer a beautiful glance at what the reader might see during his journey. The guide contains the wide assortment of maps of many important and interesting towns and cities the reader might visit with the familiar marking of the recommended places to see/eat/sleep.

I would like to point out that not all the best places to visit are pointed out in the book. I reckon they can't put everything inside and they should and do promote self-exploration. I walked around for hours in each and every place I've visited and was rejoiced to find buildings and corners that were breathtaking - on my own. I recommend you to do the same as in some cases - owning to the desire to stay compact and still comprehensive - the book provides rough guidelines that are superficial and personal opinions that might not always suit your taste.

The chapters about the Netherlands in general and the special boxed texts scattered throughout the book are very interesting and are best read during the trip to answer questions that may pop up. By and large, one will have time for that only once he is home and has the special interest in the country he has just visited.

Amsterdam-
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The Amsterdam chapter may be the most important to the common traveler, simply because there is so much to see and do there. The guide offers good and detailed maps of the city, but too bad they are divided to small maps that are made to fit into the book like regular pages, rather than giving the readers a folded map they would be able to take out for their own convenience. That leaves no choice but to buy a map at the local shops, a reality Lonely Planet can change in the next edition.

As to the content itself, it's a mixed bag. They do provide top-notch info but also tend to exaggerate sometimes in describing places up to a tiresome point. The pages about the transportation possibilities are thorough. In the end of the day, it is more than enough and you wouldn't need the Lonely Planet's Amsterdam guide if you don't plan to live there more than a week or two.

Final note -
========

The Netherlands is a strikingly beautiful country. The cities as well as the countryside are absolutely dazzling, and the people are friendly and helpful. I enjoyed traveling in the land so much that I consider it the peak of my long trip that had been mainly to the countries of South East Asia. This guide contributed a lot to the general feeling I got thanks to all its good graces.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Way Below Lonely Planet standards, August 20, 2001

By 

UC Prof (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Netherlands (Paperback)

I have used at least 7 Lonely Planet books, and this -though not bad- was well below their standard. (I do consider Lonely Planet above Let's Go and all other travel guides usually). But this one leaves a lot of information out (such as the cheapest hostel in Amsterdam). Its prices our outdated though it claims to be a 2001 edition. The Netherlands is not a big country, nor is the book, so why not include maps for more cities? Many towns do not have maps though the book is half the size of other guides. (i.e. it would be perfectly manageable to do so). Finally, one big way to travel around in the Netherlands is by bike. This guide is definitely insufficient to do even a 2-3 day bike trip. It needs major revising. New authors maybe?

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a good Lonely Planet, July 29, 2004

By 

TravelManiac (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet the Netherlands (Lonely Planet Travel Guides) (Paperback)

First of all, I was surprised to find out that this was the thinnest travel guide on Netherlands in the market. Granted it is printed in small fonts (albeit not much smaller than many others in the market), but the contents obviously show that this book is below Lonely Planet standard. I had read about half a dozen guide books on Netherlands and been trying to find information on a town named Tilburg, which is in fact the largest in terms of population in Netherlands. However, Lonely Planet contains essentially no information on this town, while both Fodor's and Rough Guide introduce quite a few worth-visiting places in the town and its neighboring towns. Out of curiosity, I also searched for some key words in the index of all these guide books and found Lonely Planet lacks the contents which seemingly should be included in a travel guide intended to be thorough.

On the other hand, if one is only looking for a 'rough guide' to one or two of the most touristy places in Netherlands and does not plan to explore for long, this book may suffice.