Karen Brown's Switzerland: Charming Inns & Itineraries 2000

These books have been very helpful on our two trips to Europe. I have found every hotel review to be accurate. The authors also give great ideas for side trips and useful maps. You can plan your whole vacation using these books.If you want to find charming smaller hotels in Europe this books is your best bet. If you prefer a larger American Style hotel or resort this is not the book for you.

After flailing through guidebooks and handbooks, maps and videos, trying to ensure that our first trip to Switzerland would be a memory to treasure and not a lampoon to forget, we had almost given up. This was an Alp too high to climb. Too many things to see, not enough time, and no simple, tested plan offered by any of the resources we tried. Then we found Karen Brown's Switzerland. She, or one of her daughters, has been there. They have eaten the food, slept on the bed, used the facilities. These are not the stripped-to-the-bone least expensive places to stay. The book is intelligently laid out in the form of several itineraries, with one to suit any taste or budget. The accuracy of the descriptions, understated if anything, was appreciated. But the most valuable parts of the book were the smaller inns that were recommended. With only 11 days in country, we could never have found that little hotel on the shore of Lake Lucerne, our room overlooking a shaded outdoor restaurant; or the chalet in the middle of a pasture, surrounded by high peaks, a waterfall at our back, and a symphony of cowbells waking us. The denouement was Soglio, a place out of time, a village perched on the side of a mountain range. Our room view was across a chasm to yet another range of mountains. If these are the types of places you want to be sure to see and stay at during your visit, Karen Brown's Switzerland will take all the guesswork out of your planning. It is worth at least 10 times the cost of the book, not only in time saved but also in nerves unfrazzled. You'll think you are Heidi.