Eyewitness Travel Guide to Amsterdam (Paperback)

~ DK Publishing (Author), DK Travel Writers (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

...You feel, looking at them, as if you could close the book and step into the street. -- Contra Costa Times

...considered to be the world's best travel resource to over 30 destinations around the world, make it easier to plan a splendid vacation. -- North American Press Syndication

Both novice and experienced travelers will be captivated. -- US News & World Report

Each book is a visual as well as informational feast about a particular place. -- The New York Times

Easily the best city guides available today. -- Playboy

Encyclopedic in scope, it's meant to be used before, during, and after your stay. -- Travel & Leisure

The Best Guidebooks Ever -- Sky Magazine

The best travel guides ever. -- Sky Magazine -Delta In flight Magazine

The most graphically exciting and visually pleasing series on the market. -- Chicago Tribune

Want to know where to get a great espresso on your way to the Uffizi? Or how much to tip a hotel maid in New York City? Try these travel guides, each an intricate trove of 3-D aerial views, landmark floor plans, color photos and essential eating, shopping and entertainment info. With titles covering Paris, Prague, and London, these pocket-sized guides are like a Michelangelo fresco: deliriously rich in detail. -- People Magazine

Product Description

The guide that shows you what other travel books only tell you!

One of Europe's most picturesque cities is vividly captured in more than 600 full-color photographs, street-by-street maps, and 3-D aerial illustrations in DK's Eyewitness Travel Guide: Amsterdam. A city of canals and waterways, Amsterdam is rich in culture and history, the home of many numerous sights including Joods Historisch Museum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Gothic structure Oude Kerk, and the famous red-light district. A panoramic canal walk leads you around the rings of canals and offers a special foldout with precise directional illustrations that spotlight the opulent townhouses lining the canals and their unique architectural style. Beyond Amsterdam, the guide covers the cities of Rotterdam, Den Haag, Haarlem, and Bloombollenstreek with photos of the regions many varieties of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths. Amsterdam's history, art, and culture of its people are captured in this comprehensive reference to the Netherlands' largest city.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: DK Travel (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078940186X
• ISBN-13: 978-0789401861
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #410,248 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Picture Yourself in Amsterdam, August 1, 2000

By	James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

When we went to Amsterdam last May, we had no idea what we were going to see. Because we tend to plan our itineraries in advance, it was important that we get some idea of which tourist sights were worth seeing. The DK Eyewitness guides are great for this purpose: They are lavishly illustrated, with colorful maps, schematics, and -- above all -- photographs of tourist destinations in and around Amsterdam.

I would NOT, however, recommend that you take this guide with you. It weights 1 pound 3 oz; and we always travel light. So what we recommend is to do your Stateside planning with the DK guide and use a lighter one to accompany you on your travels. It's a pity, because the transportation and street maps alone are worth the price of the guide.

A major plus for us is that we chose to visit the Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen partly because it looked interesting in the book; and it turned out to be by far our favorite stop.

Like other DK guides, this one has an excellent "Practical Information" section on currency, banking, telephoning, and public transportation. It also have colorful pictures of the type of food you might encounter in Amsterdam's restaurants. (And do try the raw new herring with onions and pickles: If you're a sushi-head like me, you will be in heaven.)

Where I would not use this guide is for names of specific hotels and restaurants. The information on these is presented in tabular format and leaves off many interesting sidelights that would be important for us as travellers, such as roominess, charm, family ownership, and other intangibles.

It's well worth the somewhat steep price to buy this book if you're planning a trip to the Netherlands.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Travel Guide, Beautiful Coffee Table Book!, May 22, 2002

By	Doulos (USA) - See all my reviews

.
Summary:
Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!

The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.

The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.

Specifics:

The guides are organized as follows:

How to use this guide
Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
............Introducing Amsterdam
........................Amsterdam on the Map
........................History of Amsterdam
........................Amsterdam at a Glance
........................Through the Year (events, holidays)
............Amsterdam Area by Area, each section includes:
........................Introduction to street by street area
........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings
........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.

Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
............Hotels
............Restaurants, bars, cafes
............Shops / Markets
............Entertainment

Survival Information
............Practical
........................Tourist info., Etiquete, Personal Security and Health
........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.

............Travel Information
........................Planes, trains and automobiles, signs
............Street Maps
............General Index
............Phrase Book

Discussion:
The book begins with "Introducing Amsterdam", including a complete map, a review, the city's history, and Amsterdam through the Year - including events, etc.

For the specific areas it provides an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or sections, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.

Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.

The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions

The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.

Conclusion:
Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just AWESOME., January 24, 2000

By	James P. Wisdom (PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This Amsterdam guide was given to me as a gift by my Opera-Singing buddy for my trip to Amsterdam for the Millenium, and I thanked him heartily upon my return, hugging and clapping his back. This guide has an enormous amout of information, pictures, maps, lists, graphics, detailed street-walks and ratings, all wrapped up in a durable, very easy to use, SMALL, portable package. I threw it in my back pocket when we were walking the streets, pulling it out periodically to check if we were going the right direction. Convenient, easy to understand, indespensable.