Customer Reviews

Prague (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A chance acquisition of the Prague Eyewitness Travel Guide has made me a rabid and devoted fan of the entire series. Although many travel guides offer excellent text content in terms of descriptions and reviews (Lonely Planet comes to mind), what makes the Eyewitness series such a standout is its innovative use of (glossy, color) photographs and illustrations. The Eyewitness guides use visual displays to convey information that cannot be easily gleaned otherwise, yet is extremely helpful to the travel experience.

Here are just a few examples, from the Prague guide:

* The illustration of the Charles Bridge identifies each statue by the saint's name; information which is not completely obvious (at least not to non-Czech speakers) when you're standing in front of one.

* Cutaway illustrations of churches, museums, etc. identify rooms, sections, items, etc., making it easy to home in on areas of interest, or to identify otherwise unlabeled features.

* Photographs of the outside of the buildings of reviewed attractions.

* Photographs of paper and coin currency.

* Photographs and explanations of foods and beverages.

* My personal favorite: photographs of automatic metro ticket machines with detailed instructions on how to use them.

Don't miss these exceptional and stunningly beautiful guides.

This book blew my mind. Before departing, it helped excite me about the people, history and art of the Czech Republic. Upon arrival, it served as the most perfect guide to Prague. From exquisite must-do walks to the breakdown and illustration of statues along the Charles Bridge, it covered everything worth seeing in Prague. Because of the precise maps and excellent directions, my friends and I were able to cover historic Prague in 4 days, visiting every site that we wanted to because we had such an excellent device for orienting ourselves. I would highly recommend this book to any traveler who loves to understand the history and artistic intricacies of a region. I plan to buy Eyewitness Travel Guides for all my future adventures.

Just returned from the Czech & Slovak Republics. Recommend this book highly for use in Prague - a delightful, friendly city full of great castles, museums, restaurants, and shopping (and hotels that need to be air-conditioned). This book has good details, pictures, maps. Very helpful! Phrase section was all that was needed, so don't buy an extra phrase book.

This is one of the best Guide I've ever used. It has many illustrations and tips. It provides you with a historical background of Prague. It helps in guiding your tours as it has descriptions + addresses of all monuments, restaurants, shops, ... It has also street's map,... There are many illuastrations in this book that you'll certainly need to label taken photos. It offers you a virtual tour of the city showing its best attractions.

The glossiness and ease of use for this guide is impressive. Beautiful pictures are line captioned to maps and its sturdiness should endure most accidental beer spills and coffee stains. Its color coded map is ideal for any tourist and essential as Prague's streets don't align in a grid, but rather stretch out across the city like spider's web.

However, as a resident of Prague I can tell you several of the restaurant and hotels reviews are woefully out-of-date. The Square no longer exists. It's a Starbucks and rumors persist others will soon follow (2009/2010). There is also no mention of the recently awarded Michelin stars now in Prague: Aromi (need reservations a month in advance), Le Terroir, and Allegro. And La Dégustation Bohême Bourgeoise might be the best (an award winning dining experience). Your best bet is to consult with Praguepost's website, Inyourpocket.com (a quarterly) and thepraguespoon.com (edit: oops, last article, early 2010). All 3 publish a thorough listing and rating of Prague's restaurants.

Some of the hotel reviews in Eyewitness are somewhat dubious and seed my suspicion that the practice of pay for glowing reviews still survives. There is also no mention of rowdy stag groups and the hotels which they favor (read: abuse). For some perspective on time, the Mandarin hotel has been opened since 2006 yet still is MIA in this guide, now 2009.

So my best advice for selecting a travelers guide solely for restaurant and hotel reviews is don't, but if you must, first review a guide of a city you know well (in the same publisher's series, of course). If the publisher's series lags behind the changes to hotels and restaurants in a city you know well, imagine its failure in measuring Prague's hotels and restaurants. Of course, this doesn't apply to Prague's historical points of interest as they've remained quite constant over the past several centuries. :-)

Having lived in the city of Prague twice this is the only book I will ever recommend. The way it is divided up makes more sense than the rest. It gives great information about Prague and into the surrounding area. The recommendations for restaurants are top notch and the security advice it gives is great. Highly recommend if you are taking a trip to this wonderful city.

I recently spent nine days in Prague, including a day and a half of a group tour, and about five full days of touring on my own. I found all of the information in the guide to be accurate and up-to-date, and to be at an appropriate level of depth and detail. I was able to prioritize and choose what I wanted to see, and get to everywhere. The information on public transit (metro and trams) was very helpful. I traveled to and through all the primary areas of interest without any additional maps or guidance. Because I went with a group, the hotel was pre-selected (and not one that was in the guide), so I cannot comment on that aspect of the guide.

Others on our tour (which was a community college jazz band with several parents) had guides by other publishers, which by comparison we all agreed were markedly inferior to this guide.

Overall, this was an excellent guide, and I would definitely select DK's guides for my next trip.

Really good for exploring the city's sights, a little dated on some of the more time specific things like restaraunts....and in 2 cases the recommendations were pretty out of whack with reality. Example - a french restaraunt in the Jewish Quarter that's recommended wasn't very good at all and the waiter tried to pad the bill by about 30% (Chez Marcel is the name I think) but other than that the guide was VERY helpful and pretty much on the money, great maps, interesting and accurate descriptions of sights and areas, really helped us a lot!

A quick note, if you're going to Prague in the winter, be aware that it can get VERY cold, we froze our buns in Feb, and that the crowds in summer can render many of the sites almost useless, so spring and late fall may be good bets....having said that the city is incredible and should be on your list for sure.....and they aren't kidding about the Czech traffic cops, be GOOD!!

The sights of Prague's city centre are listed and described with the aid of photos in this beautiful book. The coverage of the city centre is comprehensive, but slightly weaker when talking about Prague's suburbs and the surrounding countryside. Well worth your money!

I recently took a 4 day trip to Prague (6 days, including travel time) and took this guide book along. This book was the only one we needed to have a wonderful time there! This book was in my pocket at all times, and proved invaluable for finding landscapes, museums, etc. Especially handy are the grid-styled maps which help you locate various points of interest. This is true of all DK guide books, but I found myself using the Prague guide more than any other guide book I have owned (and I own 10 or more for destinations all over Europe) The back flap was consistently tucked into the map section which we pulled out of my pocket and referred to frequently while walking around the city.

I would say the weakest link of the DK guides is its lack of "practical info" -- for example, we were completely lost when we got to the train station to try to head to Kutna Hora (about an hour outside of Prague); the trip would have been impossible if a friendly English-speaking Czech local hadn't been nearby and offered to help us out. In addition, the accommodations listings could be a little more extensive, so you may want to research more on the web or other guidebooks at a library for booking a place to stay before you go.

The restaurant guide, on the other hand, was surprisingly good -- the short descriptions managed to get us to places that were right up our alley (for affordable food and drinks in hip, interesting environments, I recommend Radost FX and Klub Arkitektu)