Customer Reviews

Eyewitness Travel Guides Ireland

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to confess up front. I love these books. I must have a dozen. I really like the Paris book, and the one for Prague, and Stockholm, and South Africa, and .... You get all the detailed material similar to other great travel books plus you get great visuals. I just bought my sister a copy of this book.

On a cold day back here in the USA (or Canada) or elsewhere, have a glass of wine and sit in a nice chair or in the garden on a warm day and read this book. For a moment you will be back in traveling. The photos are that good.

As I said, the photos and descriptions and the cutaway drawings are excellent and more than make up for any lack of small detail. But there is lots of detail here. The book includes the history of the country and many details on the art, art galleries, parks, culture, historical figures, cutaway views of historical buildings, and many other things of interest. The history is summarized at the beginning of the book with historical time lines and cross referenced to the culture and political figures. A solid effort - lots of stuff to see and absorb.

It has the other things too such as maps, accommodations, transportation, and the rest.

You will be pleasantly surprised with the depth and quality of this book and it makes a nice souvenir to refresh your memory when you get home.

Jack in Toronto

Our family moved to Germany almost 2 years ago. Before coming here I purchased the Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany (also highly recommended). Since then, I have tried a few other books to use during our European travels. NONE of them come close to Eyewitness books. These travel guides are easy to use. They have awesome pictures. I am one who likes to look at pictures to see what is interesting and then read the info. so the pictures are a huge help. The guide for Ireland is just as great as I had expected it to be. The guide is broken into sections and regions. We did purchase a map in addition but for over-all ease and basic facts, the DK books are tops! I will always look to the Eyewitness books first when considering travel destinations.

Exactly what I expected. Great book at a great savings. Nice way to visulize your vacation!

This travel guide has a feeling that it was written from first-hand experience. One of the better ones!

it's worth it to buy this book if you are making plans for your trip to Ireland. Good pictures and mapping for each area.

This is an outstanding guide in a brilliant series; I only wish I'd found it before I'd wasted my money on the Rough Guides and Lonely Planet books. It's so dense with information and it's all so well-presented that it's an entertaining read even if you're just staying at home. All the practical information is there, in detail -- from general information to the little quirks and inconveniences that could mean the difference between feeling uncomfortable and feeling like you're on vacation. I'll never go anywhere again without the accompanying Eyewitness Travel Guide.

Of course, visit the tourist centers for the most up-to-date maps, phone numbers, and such. But for everything else, travel with confidence that you've got an encyclopedia of info that fits in your pocket.

Here's the drill: You're planning the trip, know you NEED a book - you head to the Travel Section of your favorite bookstore and begin the long process of paging through every one in stock. "Gee," you say. "They all seem good." Well, maybe it's just me... For our trip, we settled on 3 books just to cover the bases & ETG's Ireland was by far the best. The color coded indexing was especially helpful - each section has illustrated map w/icons resembling the major points of interest in the area, along w/major hwy's. This is followed by the down and dirty information for all the sites. The back of the book has all the practical info you need; rail, bus, taxi service, ticket info, customs, religious, etc. The indexing at the back is also helpful.
Bottom Line: This book went with us everywhere and we saw lots of other tourist toting too. It's colorful, informative, and will be a savior when planning your day trips...go for it and enjoy Ireland!

We took 3 travel books and used this one primarily. We found that it matched our interests exactly. Rick Steeves book was of little use and to general. This book gets into some detail and is more informative.
The pictures and layout is excellent.
My only request would be less of a vertical format as it is hard to keep the book open with the narrow, thick pages.

My husband and I recently took our first trip out of the U.S. and decided to take a dream trip to Ireland. We started reading this guide well before we left to get an idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. The guide is fantastic. The pictures and details about each place helped us to choose many sites in a small country with so many beautiful places to go. We took this guide everywhere with us. As first time European travelers we needed to know all the basics; how to get around, what a round-about was (we don't have those here), where to convert our money, hours that the places are open and when they close, customs of the country, etc. This book really layed it out and helped us in deciding where we wanted to go. We ended up traveling from Dublin to Connemara, to Cork, to Waterford and finally back to Dublin. We felt that we were able to pick facinating sites, covering Newgrange, which is older than the pyramids, to castles, (Blarney & Bunratty), Cathedrals in Dublin, Trinity College, shopping on Grafton Street and buying beautiful scarves and sweaters to take home at Blarney Woolen Mills. Some sites we passed as we drove across the country and decided to make part of our journey, such as Jerpoint Abbey, others we had planned, such as the Rock of Cashel. We also bought the street maps for Dublin done by DK. Our trip was fabulous and we now only choose the DK guides when we take a trip either in the states or abroad. For a beautifully done, comprehensive book, you cannot go wrong here. Take it from the first time traveler....this one had everything we needed.

When a long-awaited trip to Ireland was finally scheduled, I went shopping for travel guides. Having never been on an airplane before, let alone out of the country, I was understandably unsure of what I would encounter on our tour. I purchased 2 guidebooks that day and took both to Ireland with me. The other one stayed in the suitcase the entire trip. This guide proved to be absolutely indispensable, not only giving us maps so we didn't get lost on the Dublin streets, but also some of the most gorgeous photographs, bested only by the actual scenery itself. I still have all of our stops bookmarked with sticky tabs. The final proof that I chose wisely --- everyone else on the tour bus had the same guide in their hands the entire trip!