The Rough Guide to Crete 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

~ John Fisher (Author), Geoff Garvey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Excellent, and characterfully written. -- The Times, London, UK --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

The Rough Guide to Crete is the biggest, most detailed and most comprehensive guide to Crete available. Established leader in its field, now in its sixth edition. Knowledgeable yet accessible coverage of the famous sites, with historical background on the island''s Minoan past, including recent discoveries. It also illustrates Crete''s place in ancient Greek myth. The guide includes the lesser-known beaches and stretches of coastline and gives unrivalled detail on the mountains – including walking routes and unspoilt mountain villages. Sound coverage on wildlife and the environment, on Crete in literature, and on the island''s traditional music. It also includes all the practical information Rough Guides are so highly regarded for - full details of how to get there, how to get around – including local buses and boats – where to stay, and what to eat.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 6 edition (September 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843532921
• ISBN-13: 978-1843532927
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,232,721 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This guide is simply the best!!!, December 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Crete 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

The person who wrote the last review was stupid enough to choose a package holiday based in Hersonissos. I say this because Hersonissos is INSANELY OVERDEVELOPED (at least by Greek standards) and one would HAVE to be stupid to stay there when there are other, much more beautiful, much less crowded, much less expensive, much cleaner, and much less developed areas not too far away. Don't get me wrong - both Hersonissos and nearby Mallia are worth spending a night or two in just to experience the nightlife, but then one should move on to someplace prettier and quieter.

As someone who is of Cretian descent (my mother was born and raised there) and who has a ton of relatives there, I can honestly say that this guide is EXTREMELY accurate and on the mark about almost everything. It even contains facts and information which many natives don't know about. Although I usually stay with relatives in or near Hania, this book has helped me plan and successfully undertake some very awesome daytrips. It has also helped me with sightseeing, eating, and accomodation when visiting other parts of the island away from Hania (where I don't have any relatives so I have to stay in a hotel and eat in a restaurant).

This guide is NOT aimed at package tourists but it can be used even by someone on a package tour for the historic and cultural insights it offers. The reason it comes down so hard on Hersonissos is because the place IS overcrowded and spoiled (many other guides agree). Also, Hersonissos can be visited from Iraklion (the capital) or from Mallia by bus or taxi. (If you wanted to visit Monte Carlo, for example, without selling your house, you would stay in Nice or in Menton or some other nearby town and GO INTO Monte Carlo by the frequent trains - you can always take a taxi back to your hotel. This is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper than staying in a hotel WITHIN Monte Carlo itself). This is analogous to the Hersonissos situation. You can VISIT Hersonissos without actually staying in any of its expensive, crowded hotels. Does one have to stay at the Plaza in New York in order to visit the shops on Fifth Avenue or go to a Broadway play? - NO!!!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars By far the best Crete guide, November 11, 2004

By	AcornMan (Manhattan, KS) - See all my reviews

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It's unbelievable how much detailed information is in this book. The organization of the book is very convenient and there are page references throughout the book to the topics being discussed. This makes it extremely easy to either read the book from front to back or to pick out a narrow topic and read about it. My only complaints are that I wish it had more color photos and a better map, but the information is more important than photos anyway. This book will definitely make planning your trip to Crete a lot easier. And it's much, much better than the Lonely Planet Crete guide. Lonely Planet publishes some great books, but its Crete guide is not one of them.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent guide, some things missing, June 20, 2006

By	jancola (Encino, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Crete is huge -- you can't even picture how huge until you see it from the air. Crete is 160 miles from end to end, and that is why it is very useful to buy a separate book to help you find your way. I chose this book because it was the first tour guide that I found that explored Crete by bus, instead of insisting that a foreign traveller go through the troublesome ordeal of renting a car. This book is very good in that area -- it offers detailed bus and ferry schedules and acceptable maps for every city.

This guide offers tremendous hotel reviews, covering most of the obvious budget hotels and showing you how to get to them. It also provides extensive historical information on some of the more interesting sites, such as Knossos and Moni Arkadi. There are some important details, however, that this book overlooks. I feel like perhaps the writers didn't take notes on the names of things as they were travelling; in Iraklion, the book gave general descriptions of tavernas they recommended, instead of just saying their name. This made it kind of hard to figure out what they were talking about.

As with some other tour guides, the maps skimped on street names, which made them very difficult to use; they also never give the Greek letters for places, making it sometimes hard to translate what you read in the book to what you see on signs. I was also disappointed in this and other tour guides, in that they didn't mention some very critical basic information, such as how to deal with tipping, or local etiquette; Greeks have very specific expectations regarding their hospitality. I would also have liked to have read that I was not allowed to flush toilet paper down the drain -- not every facility has a warning sign about this, and it would have been useful to read about it rather than discover this oddity through experience.