Greece: Athens & the Mainland

Greece Athens & the Mainland (Eyewitness Travel Guides) I have bought several eyewitness books for traveling. For me when you have tour guide talking or as you are getting around on your own, the ability to get a short history of what you are looking at is very helpful. I don't care to read a long history at the scene, I usually do that before I travel. Eyewitness really helps for these trips.

The tourbook is organized very well with history, maps, restaurants, hotels, etc and the colored pictures are excellent. The size makes an ideal companion when travelling.

Here Eyewitness hit its stride. We traveled throughout Peloponesia extensively, and in each city we visited, the book was right on about what we could expect to see and learn about. My regret is only that the Athens city detailed maps were rather awkward to deal with -- particularly when one does not exactly know how to pronounce the names of streets, etc. As always, the practical information was current.

I am seriously toying with the idea of taking a trip to Athens (so I can teach my on-line mythology course from the Acropolis) so I spent some time looking through various travel guides. When it comes to illustrations and graphics, none of the dozen I looked at can compete with this volume from DK Publishers. Of course, if you are familiar with any of the books from DK then you are already well aware that they have made their reputation providing visually stunning volumes. When I first flipped through this book I kept thinking it was a picture book and not a travel guide, and then I wondered why anybody would even need to go to Greece after looking at all of this.The guide is divided into six sections: (1) Introducing Athens and Mainland Greece; (2) Ancient Greece, which includes historical, culture and mythological details; (3) Athens Area by Area; (4) Mainland Greece Area by Area; (5) Travelers' Needs, which covers where to stay and where to eat; and a (6) Survival Guide of practical and travel information, including a phrase book. You can go through the pages provided above to see exactly how things are laid out. Note: DK has a separate travel guide devoted to the Greek Islands.I will not contend that this is the only travel guide you would need to plan your trip and/or go to Greece. There are several other travel guides that provide considerably more detail in terms of lodgings and restaurants. However, I would suggest that this is the travel guide you want to take with you while doing sightseeing; the other one can sit in your car, backpack, or whatever. For example, there is a diagram of a Byzantine church that provides more architectural detail than you would ever need to know. Other reviewers, who have actually used this book in Greece, have commented on how a lot of things are not marked in English, which made this volume particularly helpful. That is certainly good to know. However, at this point I am using it to figure out how to maximum the time I would spend there and where else to go besides Athens (obviously Delphi is the other must see place and then, probably, Mycenea).

Very good dimensional illustrations, very good city maps with easy references from info entries. Would like to have more restaurant/lodging info and better directions on how to get from city to city. Advance planning not always effective because routes could not be easily determined. Talking to local inhabitants was easy and probably best part of journey but we could have had the same experience without being frustrated.