<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: simplistic and poorly written - take another guide
Review: I am spending my summer in Switzerland and decided to take a trusted Lonely Planet Guide with me. What a disappointment! The book is poorly written, has very few good tips on things to do and places to visit and, in my view, is completely useless for out of the way places; my list of complaints can go on and on. I no longer take the book on weekend trips as it is simply easier to ask the locals. Although I usually like Lonely Planet guides, this one should never be published again.
Rating: 
Summary: Switzerland - Lonely Planet Guide
Review: I bought the book for a recent trip to Switzerland and found it to be informative and well written. Looks like Lonely Planet are trying out something slightly different here and I like it. Going to Swizerland? Well worth the buy.....
Rating:
Summary: simplistic and poorly written - take another guide
Review: I found this guidebook very useful on a recent trip to Switzerland. Unlike most "tourist" guide books which are full of photographs, the Lonely Planet guide only has a few pages of photographs and is full of useful information on places to stay and local restaurants. The book is divided into chapters by region (e.g. Zurich, Geneva). Within each chapter are details on places to visit,hotels , restaurants, as well local services(such as transportation). There is even information on where to find the nearest laundry. As with the Other Lonely Planet Books ,it is well written and targeted at travelers on a budget. Some of the information appears to be out of date. Hopefully Lonely Planet will release a new edition of this. Until then this is a great convenient guidebook to use. Happy travels
Rating:
Summary: A very useful guidebook
Review: I found this guidebook very useful on a recent trip to Switzerland. Unlike most "tourist" guide books which are full of photographs, the Lonely Planet guide only has a few pages of photographs and is full of useful information on places to stay and local restaurants. The book is divided into chapters by region (e.g. Zurich, Geneva). Within each chapter are details on places to visit,hotels , restaurants, as well local services(such as transportation). There is even information on where to find the nearest laundry. As with the Other Lonely Planet Books ,it is well written and targeted at travelers on a budget. Some of the information appears to be out of date. Hopefully Lonely Planet will release a new edition of this. Until then this is a great convenient guidebook to use. Happy travels
Rating:
Summary: We Review Six Guides to Switzerland
Review: I have been to Switzerland at least six times. Recently I sat down with my daughter who has worked at a hotel at Interlaken in Switzerland during her years in Business Administration at McGill - up to last summer - and we went over the Switzerland guides to see how they ranked, and what was currently the best guide in our humble opinions. We are not experts but have certain requirements and preferences. It helps if one can get a feel for the area in advance of a trip, and generally that is helped by good maps and color photos. So those guides do better in our review. We like to make reservations by internet and telephone and just use the Guide as a "guide". Generally it costs more to publish a book with color photos so when all else is reasonably equal, one feels that they get better value with a guide with photos. Also we wanted to see if the ambiance at certain hotels and resorts was accurately portrayed in the text based on our knowledge. So those aspects of the guides determine our ranking. Incidentally all the books are excellent. When we did our review the new DK Eyewitness guide was not yet available, but in any case it will be short, under 400 pages. For the Swiss guides we separated the guides into three groups, 5, 4, and 3 stars. 5 Stars (this group has nice color photos plus maps and text). A. Green Guide to Switzerland published February 2001 by Michelin, 395 pages, $14., ranked 24,380 on Amazon.com, 0.64" x 9.4" x 4.7", lots of photos, maps, text, accurate portrayal of areas. Gives a nice idea of what you will find. Goes right down to small villages in detail even though it is just 395 pages. First choice. B. Lonely Planet Switzerland published July 2003, 335 pages, $ 14., ranked 29,913 on Amazon.com, .69" x 6.42" x 6.5". Solid effort, lots of good photos and descriptions. 4 Stars (this group mainly text and maps). C. Rough Guide to Switzerland published June 2003, 704 pages, $13.27, ranked 30,209 on Amazon.com, 1.08" x 7.8" x 6.38". Solid effort lots of things to see and do and best "text and maps only" books. D. Frommer's Switzerland published February 2003, 512 pages, $15.39, ranked 47,638 on Amazon.com, 1.1" x 8.5" x 5.08". Similar to Rough Guide but shorter. E. Fodor's Guide to Switzerland 42 edition, published December 2002, 448 pages, $14.7, ranked highest in group on Amazon.com at 3,172, 1.2" x 8.98" x 5.01". The smallest in the group, do not know why it is so popular?. 3 Stars F. Michelin Red Guide published in 2004, 563 pages but in four languages: Italian, French, German and English so English sections are just a fraction of the book.
Rating:
Summary: We Review Six Guides to Switzerland
Review: I have been to Switzerland at least six times. Recently I sat down with my daughter who has worked at a hotel at Interlaken in Switzerland during her years in Business Administration at McGill - up to last summer - and we went over the Switzerland guides to see how they ranked, and what was currently the best guide in our humble opinions. We are not experts but have certain requirements and preferences. It helps if one can get a feel for the area in advance of a trip, and generally that is helped by good maps and color photos. So those guides do better in our review. We like to make reservations by internet and telephone and just use the Guide as a "guide". Generally it costs more to publish a book with color photos so when all else is reasonably equal, one feels that they get better value with a guide with photos. Also we wanted to see if the ambiance at certain hotels and resorts was accurately portrayed in the text based on our knowledge. So those aspects of the guides determine our ranking. Incidentally all the books are excellent. When we did our review the new DK Eyewitness guide was not yet available, but in any case it will be short, under 400 pages. For the Swiss guides we separated the guides into three groups, 5, 4, and 3 stars. 5 Stars (this group has nice color photos plus maps and text). A. Green Guide to Switzerland published February 2001 by Michelin, 395 pages, $14., ranked 24,380 on Amazon.com, 0.64" x 9.4" x 4.7", lots of photos, maps, text, accurate portrayal of areas. Gives a nice idea of what you will find. Goes right down to small villages in detail even though it is just 395 pages. First choice. B. Lonely Planet Switzerland published July 2003, 335 pages, $ 14., ranked 29,913 on Amazon.com, .69" x 6.42" x 6.5". Solid effort, lots of good photos and descriptions. 4 Stars (this group mainly text and maps). C. Rough Guide to Switzerland published June 2003, 704 pages, $13.27, ranked 30,209 on Amazon.com, 1.08" x 7.8" x 6.38". Solid effort lots of things to see and do and best "text and maps only" books. D. Frommer's Switzerland published February 2003, 512 pages, $15.39, ranked 47,638 on Amazon.com, 1.1" x 8.5" x 5.08". Similar to Rough Guide but shorter. E. Fodor's Guide to Switzerland 42 edition, published December 2002, 448 pages, $14.7, ranked highest in group on Amazon.com at 3,172, 1.2" x 8.98" x 5.01". The smallest in the group, do not know why it is so popular?. 3 Stars F. Michelin Red Guide published in 2004, 563 pages but in four languages: Italian, French, German and English so English sections are just a fraction of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing new guide
Review: We're avid travelers and always take Lonely Planet guides with us -- they're normally very comprehensive and helpful. The new 4th edition of the Switzerland guide proved a big disappointment, though, on our recent trip. For some reason this is an unusually slim LP volume, so the depth of coverage for which LP is famous is lacking. We went to numerous delightful towns, villages, and museums that didn't rate so much as a mention. The city maps are also poor; many of the streets are unnamed, which makes the maps difficult to use for navigation. Finally, some of the authors' choices seem almost bizarre. The first boxed "Highlight" listed for the beautiful international city of Geneva, for example, is a particle physics laboratory(!) with the world's largest machine. It's probably fascinating (we didn't visit), but does it really rank with the historic European headquarters of the UN, which didn't make the Highlights box at all, or the superb International Red Cross Museum? We came to rely almost exclusively on the excellent Rough Guide to Switzerland, which at 550 pages -- compared to 335 for Lonely Planet -- is much more thorough and useful.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing new guide
Review: We're avid travelers and always take Lonely Planet guides with us -- they're normally very comprehensive and helpful. The new 4th edition of the Switzerland guide proved a big disappointment, though, on our recent trip. For some reason this is an unusually slim LP volume, so the depth of coverage for which LP is famous is lacking. We went to numerous delightful towns, villages, and museums that didn't rate so much as a mention. The city maps are also poor; many of the streets are unnamed, which makes the maps difficult to use for navigation. Finally, some of the authors' choices seem almost bizarre. The first boxed "Highlight" listed for the beautiful international city of Geneva, for example, is a particle physics laboratory(!) with the world's largest machine. It's probably fascinating (we didn't visit), but does it really rank with the historic European headquarters of the UN, which didn't make the Highlights box at all, or the superb International Red Cross Museum? We came to rely almost exclusively on the excellent Rough Guide to Switzerland, which at 550 pages -- compared to 335 for Lonely Planet -- is much more thorough and useful.
<< 1 >>
| 
