Product Description

Your holiday starts the moment you open the guide … "The best guide available. Packed to the brim with colour photos, maps and essential information." Reader review Capture the essence of Greece, Athens and the Mainland from sun-drenched fishing villages to ancient ruins. Photos, illustrations, unique 3D models and birds-eye-view maps of all the major sites ensure you don't miss a thing. Clue up on the basics, from the most comfortable places to stay (whatever your budget) to the best bars and restaurants. Discover where the locals go, enjoy relaxing entertainment, amazing sites and retail therapy, exciting sports, scenic walks or drives and thematic tours. All you need for an unforgettable trip. Winner of the Guardian & Observer ‘Best Guide Books' and Wanderlust Magazine Silver Award for 'Top Guidebook'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #308685 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

The Travel Guide for what you will NOT see in Greece...
I took along the Eyewitness Travel Guide for "Greece: Athens & The Mainland" on our trip to Greece because it showed us everything we are not going to see (Hang on, this will make sense). These DK volumes pride themselves on being "The guides that show you what others only tell you," being filled with over 1,000 photographs, illustrations, and maps. There are cutaways and floor plans of all the major sites that we are seeing, just as the Parthenon and the monastery of Varlaam. But in a week in Greece there is only so much you can see and if we not have time to visit everything in Athens and are only visiting two of the monasteries of Meteora, then this DK Eyewitness Travel Guide will show us something of what we are missing. There are sections on Ancient Greece and then Area by Area sections on Athens and Mainland Greece, along with a section on Travellers' Needs and a Surival Guide. So all the basic are covered along with the profuse illustrations.

Of course there are also sections on where to eat, where to stay, and how to get around. I especially liked the pages devoted to various types of local cuisine, which shows you what you would find on the classic Greek menu as well as the different type of dishes you should try in Central Greece versus the Peloponese. You can use this guide to scope out what you will find when you visit places like Mycenae, Olympia, and Delphi, but you might want to use it more as a reminder of what you have seen than spoiling some of the ancient treasures in store for you at these sites. For example, "discovering" the golden mask of Agamemnon or the statue of Hermes by Praxiteles might work better as a complete surprise. Then again, you would hate to miss some of these things. Of course, we compromise: I know what there is to see and my wife gets to be surprised. It works for us.

On the trip everybody wanted to borrow our guidebook. Several were going to pick it up when they get back home because it serves as a nice reminder of what we saw (and what we did not see because many museums were closed in preparation for the Olympics when I guess everything will be bigger and better).

OK for what we needed
We spent 4 days in Athens during August 2009, and this book was fine for what we wanted to see in that period. We've used other DK city guides in the past and I felt that this one skimmed the surface more than others - perhaps because DK is trying to cram the main sights of this stunning city into the rest of the mainland? I also felt that there were a few proof-reading errors (nothing serious, but enough to make me feel that this was a bit cobbled together).

DK Guides
This is up to the very high standard that I have come to expect from DK. Would not visit anywhere without one!