Product Description

Part of the Lonely Planet Country Guide Series. The only dedicated guide to this emerging region of Eastern Europe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104128 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 440 pages

Customer Reviews

Western Balkans guidebook - buy with caution
Having just completed a 2 week trip to Croatia, Bosnia + Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro - I lost this book in a taxi in Budva on the Montenegrin coast but to be honest we had so many problems with this bok that it wasn't really missed!
First of all the section on Montenegro is bad - I mean the main places of interest if you are going there for a few days is Kotor & Lake Skadar - but the book disuades you from staying on the capital Podgorica -as it is really ugly - and encourages you to stay on the coast - but the coast is all resort-y and eldorado-y - it is much better to base yourself in the capital as you have all the transport links for day trips to the old capital Cetinje (well worth it for the art gallery and national museum of montenegro)It doesn't go into enough detail about how you need to verify everything about 3 times before you take it as gospel with the local people - we were told by an information booth in Kotor the WRONG bus times to Dubrivnik- tourist info is really limited and you cannot forward plan days as there is no national rail or bus enquiries as they are all owned privately and it's all a bit random.Different bus stations can't tell you bus times in other towns - ridiculous! Sarajevo - tourist info is crap they have a lame map - then you have to pay 10 euros for this huge cumbersome map from a bookstore. Belgrade - the maps in Lonely pLanet do not correlate to the ones given by tourist info - first of all it would be helpful for LP to put the cyrillic and roman names for the street - as how else are we supposed to know where everything is?
I would recommend this book as an overview but some of the info is plain INCORRECT - the number for the tourist agency in Kotor is WRONG - it is the number for the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of Montenegro - how can LP get that wrong ? Do not stay in any of the hotels in any of the countries BIG problem with hot water due to them previously being state owned - total rip off - stay in private rooms - you may even get a kitchen but INSIST on them putting the boiler on! For 2 weeks we had luke warm showers! You need to have a good look at the cyrillic alphabet before you go to Serbia & Montenegro - otherwise it is really confusing as all the street names are only in cyrillic - and bring a PHRASEBOOK - you wil really get loads of use out of it - the language section in the back of this book is rubbish - it won't aid you as only limited english-speaking people there.
This is a updated version of the Eastern Europen guide but even that is outdated as loads of things had changed - my friend brought it to this holiday but it was useless.
Don;t rely on this book - if you can get other guides - in Sarajevo they had loads of brilliant guides from 'buybook' that is so much more detailed - seek this out to complement what you have.

LPX
Bedrock for many a travellers itinerary. I had so many of these I set up a website to get rid of them.
I found this book useful in that it covers, in some depth, all areas you're likely to visit.
You will find yourself referring to it for basic information.