Sicily (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

• Paperback - September, 2003 - DK ADULT
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• By: DK Publishing
• ISBN: 0789495732

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Reviews by readers

Another Helpful RoughGuide

We havent traveled to Sicily yet to put the book to its big test, but in planning for the trip it has been very helpful...telling us what to absolutely not miss, good places to stay and eat, and insider things off the beaten path.

Good basic overview for first time traveler to Sicily

We have never traveled to Sicily before, so we found this book useful in planning our trip and useful once we got there. The book is organized well according to region and then by city, with more space given to larger cities. It was very helpful for us since we went to 4 cities in 9 days. However we went off season, so we found that sometimes the times and days open listed in the book were not true once we showed up at a site.

The colorful pictures really help when you need to find buildings and other sites, but the maps are not detailed enough for navigating Sicilian streets. Stop in at any tourist office for a free map of each city once you get there. I agree that the historical descriptions for certain sites could have been better. But I found the brief descriptions helpful at times when making quick decisions. Do we really want to walk to this site or skip it for another one? The book also has some sample walking paths to take around cities to maximize your time.

Disappointing. Even DK can run out of steam.

How things change. Until now, I had only good things to say about Eyewitness Guides. They used to be top of the heap. True, there have been decidedly average jobs (Japan was one, beaten by unlikely contender, Rough Guide, hands down), but Sicily is a major disappointment.

The first and the main thing that is wrong with this book - not enough content, not enough informed text, and tired cliched writing at that, too. The appearance is still there: nice pictures, helpful layout, but there's nothing to read. Description of major attractions is superficial at best. History section ("through the ages") is a bit better, but this is about the only strong point.

There isn't even a decent map of Palermo (tourist office gives you a better one for free), and the maps which are included cannot even be bothered to show a railway station. Information on airport transfers? Forget about it. Talk about sleeping on their laurels.

For comparison: a few years ago, a guide to much less visited (a far more difficult) Sardinia was sharp, well-researched and informative. It seems that they work so hard to enter the league of major guide producers to every popular destination, alongside with Lonely Planet, Fodor's, Frommers and Rough Guide, that they lost their sense of purpose and, most importantly, their pride of superbly produced, all-stops-pulled, product.

I used to commend DK on their cheerful style of writing, so different from a grumpy and grumbling world of Lonely Planet and Rough Guide. Now, it seems, they had taken another extreme: research is so superficial it appears not to exist at all, and practical advice so general they can apply to almost country.

Alternative? I had Frommer's as my second guide on my Sicilian trip, and I found it very good (actually, much better researched and deeper than their latest full-Italy guide). There are drawbacks, but overall it was extremely useful. More than can be said about this Eyewitness Guide.

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