Lonely Planet Croatia [Paperback]

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

Explained: the book is absolutely incomplete because it simply doesn't cover the north half of the country (about half the territory of Croatia). It misses towns like Sisak, Virovitica, Cakovec and it doesn't contain anything about the Osijek castle. I don't know why the writer ignored this part of the country, I suppose she might have liked the beautiful sea-shore better but this doesn't make an excuse at all.

Then: it ignores some significant towns near the Bosnian border, like Knin and Sinj, I know these places aren't the most likeable ones but they have a historical significance - these were the cities most affected by the civil war and these places are a part of Croatian history and quite an important one.

Moreover: even though she spent most of her time on the shore, what about Novi Vinodolski, Senj, Karlobag, Umag, Porec and the inner Istria? These places are worth discovering and there isn't a single word about them in the book.

It is dated, because it doesn't contain up-to-date information about the country. For example: if you drive a car (having a picnic in the countryside) or walking around you should be prepared for mine fields - there are still many of them in the country. These fields aren't on the map and they are near main roads, too. The section on driving is incomplete in another aspects, too. There are also other failures and mistakes that I don't want to list, it would be too long to fit into a review.

So I don't suggest anyone buying this book. Try something else. This time Lonely Planet is your worst choice.

I'm going to give this guide the travel guide racism award of the year for its sidebar on Vlasi (Vlachs/Morlachs in the guide). It suggests that beating women was a regular feature of Vlach culture, suggests that the religious sistership (there is alos a brothership ceremony) of the Orthodox Church was for the formation of lesbian relationships in lieu of marriage (Such bloodbrother and bloodsister ceremonies, still in use today, link friends for life, are completely platonic and were often used for inheritance and political reasons - it brings another person into a family, i.e. literally makes a sister or brother of someone unrelated). The Vlasi are a nomadic and semi settled peoples of great antiquity in the Balkans and Eastern Europe with a great mercantile heritage, speak several related ancient latin-like languages, and, with the Illyrians, form part of the ethnic substata of Croatians although some Vlasi still exist today.

More than that, the editor suggests that the term Morlach means Black Vlach becuase the skin color of Vlasi was supposedly darker than Croatians. Where she got this additional piece of racism is unfathomable, but the term actually derives from the Greek term Mavrovlahoi, as differentiated from the Kutsovlahoi and other Vlach groups in Greek. The mavro in this case is derived from a period of time in which these Vlasi were either famous for their black wool and/or carried black banners, the banners forming reasons why groups tended to be differentially called as White, Black, Red or Blue or other colors peoples in the early Christian to Middle Byzantine/early Islamic period documents. (cf. also banner terms of these sorts for various unrelated Turkic and Mongol tribes, among others.) It is interesting to note in this regard that Croatians as a people are listed in wrtings from 7th century Byzantine sources as being divided into a Black Croatians group and a White Croatians group. And they carried banners reflecting this.

All in all, the book would not have suffered from the author attempting forays into areas in which she was basically unschooled if she had used printed space for more detailed information on the country.