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39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of Europe!, 12 Dec 2001
By A Customer
At last! A DK Eyewitness Travel Guide for a whole continent - Europe! I have waited for something like this and I'm so glad when it finally arrived. It's a really great book. After getting my first Eyewitness book on Italy, I fell in love with the DK guides because of their beautiful photos, detailed maps, cutaways that show the interior of buildings, detailed explanations, and their nice glossy paper. This book is so well-organized and easy to read. It looks like a small coffeetable book and long after your travels are over, serves as a wonderful souvenir. Often, when I think my own photos of places did not do justice to a sight, I show friends the photos in the DK book.Before getting this book, I wondered how DK could possibly cram the whole Europe into just 1 guide book. As I found out, it's quite simple really. This book picked all the most important sights and attractions, in the best 23 cities, in 20 countries! It covers not just Western Europe but Scandinavia and Central/Eastern Europe too! These are: UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Czech, Hungary and Poland. So this book is perfect for travellers wanting to go on a whole Europe tour. But of course with just about 50-80 pages for the major countries and about 20 pages for the smaller ones, this Europe guide is not that comprehensive. So for those travellers who want more in-depth information, then I suggest the individual country or regional guides will serve you better. As for the content, I've found them descriptive, objective and factual. Opening and closing times are often mentioned. A big plus is having website addresses and contact information which is great for travel planning. And in this Europe book, practical information are given per country. However, I haven't had much use for their accommodation listing. It's much easier to get better deals over the internet. Same with restaurant listings where I would end up eating in the nearest and most convenient places. One downside though to these wonderful DK books are their weight. They're quite heavy (because of the nice glossy paper). So what I do is make photocopies of pages I like and just bring those during the day when sightseeing. This DK Europe book is indeed great value for your money. So if you're off to Europe, this book will be your best friend. Happy travels!
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