Book Description
Who but Rick Steves can tell travelers the best ways to meander around the region's beautiful beaches, excellent restaurants, and fascinating history. With Rick Steves’ Croatia and Slovenia 2007, travelers can experience everything Croatia and Slovenia, has to offer – economically and hassle-free.
• Details Hvar Island, Dubrovnik, Split, The Julian Alps, The Karst, and other leading destinations
• Designates friendly places to eat and sleep, with suggestions for day plans, historical walking tours, and trip itineraries
• Provides clear instructions for smooth travel anywhere by car, train, or foot
• Includes web support at www.ricksteves.com, for insight on hotels, restaurants, sights, and culture
• Contains color maps and photos
America’s #1 authority on travel to Europe, Rick’s time-tested recommendations for safe and enjoyable travel in Europe have been used by millions of Americans in search of their own unique European travel experience.
Customer Reviews:
Rick Steves is the best!.......2007-08-31
I have used several guide books for each international trip and Rick Steves always has the most useful information for someone looking for a fun but affordable trip. He picks the best values for the money, and always knows where the locals go. The best was a little cafe in Aix en Provence where we went for lunch, and as we were sitting, Rick Steves walked by with his film crew, so we all ran out and had him sign our Rick Steves' Provence books!
Insightful and comprehensive commentary.......2007-08-14
Rick Steves knows Europe and how to convey his insightful comments in an entertaining way. I read the book cover to cover without being bored or inundated with any useless data....everything was relevant. Highly recommended.
Totally Trust Rick Steves.......2007-06-14
I used Rick Steve's throughout Germany and Belgium and his tips and recommendations were spot on. We are now planning a trip to Italy and Croatia and I am once again, using his money & time saving tips, and recommendations on where to stay.
If you want to be simply a tourist, then Rick Steve's is not for you. If you want to truly experience a culture and have a great time then use his book.
This guide has exactly what you need.......2007-06-06
I've been to Europe 3 times and used National Geographic, Eyewitness and now Rick Steves. Except for the pretty pictures in the other two, they just don't compare to Rick's guide.
If your not familiar with Rick's guids here is the difference: They are written from the point of view of a real traveler.
This guide tells you (in ricks opinion and/or his staff) what's worth seeing, how to get there, where to stay, where to eat. Second it goes so far as to give hours, email, phone and real prices (as well as comments like "overly perfumed rooms") for every hotel/restaurant in the book. This is exactly the insight you need when your showing up in a foreign country and a big step above the generic information found in other guides.
I highly recommend that if you're going to buy this book, you do it before you book a single thing on your trip.
Good Guide.......2007-05-28
I visited Croatia and Slovenia with this guide and one other. This was the best.
Book Description
Chase the ghosts - or your shadow - through the basement halls of Diocletian's Palace in Split, p. 191. Eyeball an elephant amid the subtropical greenery at Tito's hideaway on the Brijuni Islands, p. 135. Sniff out a truffle in the Istrian hills and cook them local-style with eggs or pasta, p. 148. Get your kit off and swim with the naturist locals on the Pakleni Islands, p. 222. Find out if all those spotted dogs really come from Dalmatia, p. 22.
The original English-language guide to Croatia; a decade of in-country experience; 60 maps.
Content updated daily: visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveller suggestions.
Customer Reviews:
Lonely Planet Delivers, As Usual.......2007-07-26
My wife and I used this book recently on a trip through Croatia and found it a very good mix of broad and deep, offering plenty of the details we needed for our stay in Split and drive down the coast towards Makarska, as well as great recommendations on what to do and where to go in general. We followed the book's advice when we went to the island of Brac (just off the coast near Split) for the day and visited a tiny little town on the far side of the island called Milna, and found it to be just amazing. Recommended.
Awesome!!.......2007-03-09
This book is a must have for anyone traveling to Coratia. It is so informative and I love it!!!!!!
A solid guide w/ mostly accurate info.......2006-12-08
I used LP Croatia side-by-side with the Rough Guide to Croatia during May and June 2006. I only visited Southern and Central Dalmatia including Split, Hvar, and Dubrovnik.
LP Croatia is concise and had no serious inaccuracies but it lacked lots of the context, detail, and history that the Rough Guide provided. If you're just looking for places to go, how to get there, and where to stay I'd get LP. If you want more of a tour guide with lots of bios, background, art & architecture info, I'd take the Rough Guide. If I went again, I'd take both.
Pros: Good logistical information on how to get around and where sites were. Good food sections (burek is amazing) and good language/phrase sections(except that the most important words were all buried). Also, did a great job of explaining how the private room accommodations work. Provided good, practical advice on how to get the best rooms, etc.
Cons:
Maps were sometimes inaccurate--Rough Guide's were generally better. This was largely because of the lack of street signs and lots of small alleys that trick you. GPS would have been very useful.
Unusually, I think LP underrated some places--namely Dubrovnik.
Doesn't prioritize where to go or what to see. For instance, Diocletian's Palace in Split was covered in graffiti and the city had little to offer.
They need a section on "If you have to choose" between different sites and different cities that tells you which are the best sites overall for certain interests.
Bottom line: LP Croatia was a solid travel guide but it could have provided more advice to the first-time traveler.
Indispensable guide to Croatia.......2005-08-06
My husband and I just came back from Croatia and used this guidebook religiously for the past three weeks. We thought it was just great. All of the information was spot-on and the descriptions were amusing and accurate. The author clearly loves Croatia and offers in-depth insight into the country. We particularly liked her choice of itineraries and highlights. Traveling around Croatia is so complicated that we really needed to rely on the boat information. Here again, the book didn't let us down. We checked out a lot of guidebooks before settling on this one and we weren't sorry.
good, but has some defects.......2004-06-22
like all travel guides, you can find something that is not there in 'lonely planet croatia'... i will be traveling croatia this summer and have had the advantage of using several guidebooks in my planning... they all have their pros and cons, so a review of any of them must necessarily discuss these:
the pros: the maps and city plans are substantially better than in the competitors' guidebooks... lonely planet is one of the few cheap-o style travel guidebooks that gives you information on at least a few hotels that are not youth hostels, dives or other forms of bottom-barrel accommodation; in other words, they at least give you a few mid-range and expensive options if you wish to go that way... all the essentials are there, with great suggestions on places to sleep, eat and visit
the cons: as with ALL of the backpacker/youth travel guidebooks (LP, rough guide, let's go and company), the information on sights/monuments/museums, etc., is SEVERELY lacking... there is just the most basic of information on the history of the sights that you have gone so far to see... which makes it necessary to buy another book, pay an expensive guide or some such thing... (for instance, you will rarely read detailed descriptions of the artwork to be found in a church and are often left wandering about saying 'this is so beautiful, i wonder what it is...i wish the guidebook would tell me more!') i know this would make the guidebooks huge, but even 50% more information would be wonderful so as to have a little bit more of a grip on what you are looking at after taking a 12-hour ferry ride across the adriatic to get there!
which is why, despite its quality, i always felt the need to take another guidebook along, just in case...using my usual technique of tearing out just the pages i would need from each book
Customer Reviews:
DK guide to Croatia.......2007-09-14
Love those DK guides. Got the book in plenty of time for my trip.
Thanks
Eyewitness Travel Guides - Croatia .......2007-03-16
When planning a trip, I go straight to the Eyewitness Travel Guides. They are well laid out by geographic area, informative, visually appealing and just the rigtht size to tuck into a travel bag. I hope to collect many more!
Book Description
The Bradt guide to this popular and tranquil alternative to mainstream Mediterranean Europe focuses on Croatia's natural and cultural attractions.
Customer Reviews:
Very uneven.......2007-03-23
This book has recived very positive reviews, and not without reason. Compared to travel guides such as Lonely Planet or Rough Guide, the authors in the Bradt-series have got more freedom to form their own book. The lack of a standard format has both good and bad sides to it. One of the problems is that some authors focus very much just on the topics that interest themselves, and that is what I perceive to be a weakness in the Bradt guide to Croatia.
If you are interested in museums in the main tourist spots, then this is definitely the book for you. It focuses on the main tourist areas and on the cultural sites of these towns/cities.
However, if you are interested in places off the beaten track, you won't find much information in this book. And if you're a bit younger and want some information about nice cafés in the day-time, you won't find anything here. The same goes for night-clubs, while the authors of Bradts Guide to Serbia devotes many pages to the subject, it's a blank spot in this book.
To sum up, if you're a traveller planning to visit one or two of the most touristic sites (Dubrovnik, Hvar, Istria) just to lie in the sun or to visit museums, this book will be perfect for you. If not, you better go for the more diversified Lonely Planet's guide to Croatia.
Charming Croatia, delightfully described.......2007-03-03
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (2/07)
Getting only a glimpse of the frontispiece on this charming guidebook one should be excused for thinking that its subject is a Caribbean country or one of those magical, far-away islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The sandy beaches are snow-white and the water is vividly blue-green, a color that we are hard pressed to believe could truly exist in nature. Most readers will be really surprised that the cover photo actually comes from the island Cres in Croatia. Yes, Croatia is one of those relatively unknown, but exceptionally beautiful countries. It would be easy to write a clichéd, all-too-rosy book about it; yet Piers Letcher managed to do it justice without exaggerating or being too one-sided. As we learn in the Introduction, he has been visiting it for over 20 years and he evidently loves it greatly. He has also done a lot of research, which is clearly evident from the very useful General Information in Part I. This section covers all of the usual topics, from the background information to tons of practical, how-to information, even including some ideas on "how to give back" (voluntary work, charities...). The practical information section contains one of the best pieces of advice ever on how to handle the topics of the recent war in a possible conversation with the local people. "Even with a population that is now 90% Croat, as a foreigner you won't always know immediately whether you are talking to a Croat or a Serb, and even if you are sure, opinions are sufficiently divergent to be dangerous. The only really safe thing you can say, if you are asked directly, is that you're pleased it's all over, and that peace should bring prosperity." This is a tip to be remembered as it could come in handy in many similar situations just abut anywhere in the world.
The second part is The Guide, divided into seven chapters describing different regions of Croatia: Zagreb, Inland Croatia, Istria, Kvarner Bay and Islands, Northern Dalmatia, Central Dalmatia and Southern Dalmatia. Piers Letcher has a great way of mixing different elements - flora, fauna, history, humor -while describing an area, such as this inspired portrayal of the Plitvice Lakes, which happen to be one of my all-time favorites as well:
"Each of the lakes seems to be a different colour, ranging from turquoise to emerald through every blue and green you could imagine. In places the lakes seem as still and reflective as a cathedral, elsewhere they run away fast, frothing through steep gullies and shooting out from fissures in the rock. The magical noise of falling water drowns out even the shrillest of small children. On the less frequented paths it's easy to imagine the bears and wolves, as you walk across a deeply shaded bed of leaves, crunching underfoot. [...] It's inadvisable, however, to be in the wilds after nightfall - the bears and the wolves avoid the main paths and the crowds, but they do patrol out at night. [...] There have been no incidents in recent years involving tourists, but it was here, on April 16 1988 [...] that a national park warden was killed by a bear. The bear was apparently confused by a storm, and anxious to protect its cub, when it was surprised by the unfortunate warden. Being a Serb, he could probably be counted as the first victim in the Serbo-Croat war, which actually took off here in Plitvice, when the Serbs took over the management offices in March 1991."
Such vivid narratives coupled with plentiful and very detailed maps certainly make for an exceptionally useful guide book. I would highly recommend it to anybody who is lucky enough to head towards Croatia as well as to an armchair traveler ready to discover one of the better kept European secrets. For those of you who would like to understand Croatia even better, Piers Letcher put together an extraordinary list of additional reading material as well as a bunch of useful websites to visit. All of those can be found on over three pages at the very end of "Croatia, 2nd: The Bradt Travel Guide."
Helpful guide.......2006-11-14
Bradt guide is organized in a friendly format by Croatian regions. Regional and site/city specific maps along with pertinent information made exploring less confusing than our experience with other guides. Highly recommended!
Great Book.......2006-11-03
This book helped me to discover wonderful places to visit. Thanks a lot.
The best we bought.......2006-10-14
Have just returned from 2 weeks in Croatia and we cannot recommend the country, or this book, highly enough. We purchased 3 titles in all, and while each had its merits this guide was by far the most insightful into the history, culture, and sights of the country. We drove, mostly, but ditched the car in both Zagreb and Dubrovnik on the advice of this book and thought that was one of the best pieces suggestions.
Book Description
Free companion podcast available...
You'll never fall into tourist traps when you travel with Frommer's. It's like having a friend show you around, taking you to the places locals like best. Our expert authors have already gone everywhere you might go— they've done the legwork for you, and they're not afraid to tell it like it is, saving you time and money. No other series offers candid reviews of so many hotels and restaurants in all price ranges. Every Frommer's Travel Guide is up-to-date, with exact prices for everything, dozens of color maps, and exciting coverage of sports, shopping, and nightlife. You'd be lost without us!
Frommer's Croatia offers detailed, complete coverage of this captivating, increasingly popular country. Author Karen Olson takes you inside the thriving cities of
Zagreb, Dubrovnik and
Split, with their spectacular Roman ruins, medieval old towns and nearby storybook castles. She recommends the best way to sail or drive the country's stunning
Dalmatian Coast, with pristine beaches along more than 3,000 miles of coastline, and more than 1,000 offshore islands. She explores such natural wonders as
Plitvice Lakes National Park, where pristine turquoise lakes tumble into waterfalls over deposits of travertine. And she ventures into inland Croatia for a visit to
Hlebine, a colony of nearly 200 painters and sculptors that features the country's largest concentration of naive art. From the Turkish bazaar–like feel of Split's Pazarin market to the lowdown on Zagreb's see-and-be-seen cafe culture, Frommer's Croatia showcases the best of a country that has long been labeled Europe's best-kept secret.
Customer Reviews:
Good itineraries, poor maps.......2006-12-16
There are not too many Croatia guide books out there that are up-to-date. Most of the restaurant information and hotel information was accurate. There were a few places that no longer existed (this is a May 2006 version and I was in Croatia in October 2006). My biggest complaint about this book was the lack of maps. There were no good city maps to help you get around. If you want some basic information about Croatia and what to see this is a good guide. But if you need more help in selecting places to stay, what to eat, how to get there and what you are looking at this isn't the guide book for you.
great book for vacationing.......2006-11-04
The book was very imformative and helpful. I referred back to it daily on my trip.
Customer Reviews:
Rich visual guide to Croatia's cultural, natural, and historic heritage.......2006-09-23
I took three guides on a three week trip to Croatia in 2006: Lonely Planet, Bradt's, and this one. I used the first two to learn about where to stay and eat. I used the Knopf guide to truly learn about Croatia's amazing natural and cultural offerings.
The authors cover in much greater depth the historical, cultural, natural, and archaeological sites of lovely Croatia than any other guide book. It was an invaluable resource for choosing the best places to go and what to see and visit in the country.
The book itself is a pleasure to use. It's gorgeous, well-designed, illustrated, and written. The maps were superb and the most practical and useful of any of my guide books.
The book is as useful on the ground as it is for pre-trip planning and dreaming.
Product Description
Folded road and travel map in color. Scale 1:500,000. Distinguishes roads ranging from motorways to secondairy roads. Legend shows railways, mountain railways, funiculars, car ferries, ascents, state boundaries, border crossing points, border crossing points passable on special conditions, National Parks, natural sights, international airports, churches, monasteries, mosques, castles, ruins, antique ruins, passes, hostels, caves, spas, beaches, camping sites, World Heritage sites. Legend in 5 languages, including English. Index on back of map.
Customer Reviews:
Good map.......2006-09-20
This map is much better than the Croatia Travel Map (Globetrotter Travel Map). This map is more detailed (1:500,000), shows more (includes Slovenia and parts of neighboring countries), shows the mountain ranges, and national parks, etc.
Book Description
Hailed by feminists as one of the most important contributions to women's studies in the last decade, this gripping, beautifully written account describes the daily struggles of women under the Marxist regime in the former republic of Yugoslavia.
Customer Reviews:
Good Feminist Primer for Study of the Eastern Bloc.......2007-01-15
This collection of essays on life under Communism in Eastern Europe provides a unique perspective on the failure of the Communist system. Particularly memorable anecdotes include the author's misgivings over buying her daughter a Barbie doll and the actions and behaviors which became commonplace in a society in which (and this is emphasized) everyone lived in moderate to extreme poverty.
It is extremely difficult to find any personal narratives concerning Communism which are more or less politically unbiased. The author of this work seems to hold a sort of nOSTalgia for the days under Communism as a time of equality, even though this equality set the standards of living extremely low. The perspective of which this book comes from seems to be predominantly a feminist, as opposed to left or right wing, perspective, making for an enlightening read.
The bare bones downfalls of Communism are extrapolated and explored with an eye and mind which rarely condemns Communism, but rather identifies problems with an air of disappointment. The most striking shortcoming is the lack of tampons or alternatives, demonstrating the government's inability to deal with even the most basic needs of the female population.
I recommend this book as a valuable primary source for the study of the Eastern Bloc, the disinitigration of the European Communist regimes, and for a feminist perspective on some of the most glaring political issues of the 20th century.
Reader, beware..........2004-02-09
I would have given this book three and a half stars if I had the option; but I don't, so I am giving it four, all on account of its good narrative and occasional wit.
I keep hearing and reading about what an "eye-opener" this book has been for readers in Western countries. That is all well and fine; many of the things she describes are valid information.
The problem is that this book, by empathizing (and rightly so) with the everday noodle-and-darning plight of "sisters" in other so-called Communist regimes (all of whom had a MUCH harder time than we in the former Yugoslavia ever did) tends to blur not only the HUGE political and social nuances and distinctions among the various "Communist" countries, but also inside ex-Yugoslavia itself. In short, the so-called Communist "block" was never really a "block" - it was a tapestry of many nuances and textures, depending on the country.
Admittedly, I belong to a different generation than Ms. Drakuliæ. Furthermore, I was born and grew up in the northern part of the country, called Slovenia (now, an independent state), which was, incidentally, the "richest" part of Yugoslavia. (And BTW: I don't recall any of her interlocutors in the book being a Slovene... Why not? Maybe because the situation in Slovenia wouldn't fit in with the utterly dismal picture that she is painting?)
Here are some facts: often, there were (usually short-term) shortages of different things: sugar, bananas, chocolate, detergent... I even remember a shortage of toilet paper, once. But never all at the same time, and never for very long. We never queued, like the unfortunate peoples of the Soviet satellite states. I for one DID have dolls, very pretty ones (no, NOT rag dolls) - 18 of them! If there ever was a shortage of tampons (I never use them), I certainly don't remember any shortage of sanitary towels. We were always nicely dressed and made-up; and if the clothes on offer in our own country didn't suit us, we'd make a 2 hour trip to nearby Italy, where we could buy more trendy attire. (Nobody in my family ever did that, BTW.)
No, I am not one of those short-memoried "nostalgics" who mourn the demise of the Titoist regime and the fallacy of the infamous "unity & fraternity" slogans of those days... In fact, I did every thing that I could to help erode it and bring it down.
I just resent history - ANY history - being "tailored" to suit the prefabricated expectations of foreign readers.
Had Ms. Drakuliæ decided to include a "girl talk" with a Slovene or two - who were even her "compatriots" in those times, after all - a picture slightly more complex would emerge. And maybe then people elsewhere wouldn't have been surprised by the news that Yugoslavia was falling apart... It already WAS - always had been - several different countries within one artificial structure.
In short: enjoy this book, for it tells the truth - and it tells it well! Just not the ENTIRE truth.
Essays on life in Communist Eastern Europe from a woman.......2003-07-26
I have read Drakulic's later book Balken Express, and thought this book far better. Drakulic's book is a series of essays about the difficulty of life in Eastern Europe from a woman's perspective. Communism collasped because it could not satisfy the demands of the population. Drakulic details many of those shortcomings in her book. Not only did Communism produce poor paint and bad toilet paper, it did not even produce tampons or other products for women. That is why Communism failed. Few history books will detail this perspective, but from a humanistic point of view, it is true.
The other perspective Drakulic tries to point out is that of a journalist pointing to the failures of both Communist and Western society. Drakulic portrays the homeless of NYC with the fact that in Communist society everybody is poor but not homeless. These perspectives are needed as well, because some aspects of Communism were indeed noble.
A good book about the failure of Communism. This book was a short informative read about a doomed political system.
powerful and beautifully-written.......2002-07-05
I will read this eye-opening book again and again. Historical accounts of communism can't paint the picture that this book has painted. This reads like poetry and is real.
A book for everyone ... would that it were read by everyone!.......1999-12-27
A fascinating collection of poignant vignettes on being a woman in communist Yugoslavia (with stories of the author's friends and acquaintances in other Eastern European countries.) Ms. Drakulic shares with the West the reasons whereby 40-plus years of communist-engendered habits and viewpoints and tendencies cannot undergo an overnight "attitude adjustment". This book is a must for anyone who seeks to begin to sympathize and understand the thoughts and roots of people (especially women) who were born and raised in Eastern Europe. I bulldozed through it, and am now reading her "Cafe Europa". Eye-opening!
Book Description
Balkan Holocausts? compares and contrasts Serbian and Croatian propaganda from 1986 to 1999, analyzing each group's contemporary interpretations of history and current events. It offers a detailed discussion of holocaust imagery and the history of victim-centered writing in nationalism theory, including the links between the comparative genocide debate, the so-called holocaust industry, and Serbian and Croatian nationalism. No studies on Yugoslavia have thus far devoted significant space to such analysis.
Customer Reviews:
The propaganda war.......2005-04-03
A great book to understand why the Yugloslav people went to war in 1991. MacDonald shows how the Holocaust was instrumentalized during the nineties by both Croats, Muslims and Serbs, in order to portray the other republics as evil enemies bound on the destruction of the other nationalities. By claiming a role as victim, nationalist leaders like Milosevic and Tudjman could rally support for a war against the other republics, relying heavily on Yugoslav history. Croats were portrayed as descendants of the fascist Ustasa-regime, which ruled Croatia during WW II and persecuted Jews and Serbs alike. This "genocidal nature", Serb nationalists claimed, wasn't erased by history and manifested itself again, and therefore legitimized a "defensive war". Croat nationalists told the same horror stories to prove the Serbian "genocidal nature", which would explain why independence and a war against Serbs were necessary for the Croatian people to survive. Although McDonald often repeats the same message, he does succeed in making clear why Croats, Serbs and Muslims went to war in 1991. Mind that this is an academic book, primairly aimed at historians and university students.
Book Description
Whether you're looking to indulge in the finest cuisine or eat well on a limited budget, stay in the most luxurious hotels or find great deals on hostels and B&Bs, Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides provide invaluable information from local experts, all of which will help you discover the best of everything at each destination.
Books:
- Rise & Fall Of The British Empire
- Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford Archaeological Guides)
- Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure
- Schaum's Outline of Fluid Dynamics (Schaum's)
- Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
- Seasons of Delight
- Shadow Dance: A Novel
- Shakespeare's Victorian Stage: Performing History in the Theatre of Charles Kean
- Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
- Terra: Struggle of the Landless
Books Index
Books Home
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General
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Croatia and Slovenia Map
Croatia (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
Rick Steves' Best of Eastern Europe 2007 (Rick Steves)
Rick Steves' Prague and the Czech Republic 2007 (Rick Steves)
Lonely Planet Croatia
