A decent guide book, now a bit dated. Not as interesting as the D-K Eyewitness series, but the site descriptions are useful. The city maps are weak, showing only a few street names. May be better if you already know the Netherlands, but not enough for the first-time visitor.

My husband and I used this book on our week's vacation in Belgium. We were going to be staying at a small Bed & Breakfast in West Flanders, taking day trips to some of the larger cities in the country, so we chose the Baedeker's guide for its separate driving map.

The driving map served us well on the highways between cities. However, once we got off the major roads and tried to find the smaller attractions shown as dots and crosses on the map, we began to realize that the smaller roads necessary to get from the highways to the attractions were frequently unlabeled. This caused some major confusion as we also hit a road detour and ended up driving along a one-lane road that seemed to go right through the field of a private farm.

The maps of the cities listed in the guidebook itself were also found to be lacking, unless one had already figured out how to get to central Brussels, and only wanted to visit the museums around the Place des Palais. For more details, Baedeker's recommends purchasing their guides to the specific cities that you wish to visit.

The guide primarily came in handy for narrowing down which cities we wanted to visit, and for its listing of the major attractions for each city (even though the attractions aren't always marked on the maps).

Other handy features of the guide include a language section that lists common words one may need to know, with both the French and Dutch/Flemish translation. The translations are extremely useful for those who would actually like to know what food they are ordering before the waiter or waitress sets it in front of them (esp. if you do not like eel).

There are sections on Belgian art history, castles and monasteries, markets (flea, antique, and flower), and military cemeteries (of which Belgium has quite a lot). All of these make Baedeker's Belgium very useful as a first and general guide to the country. However, I recommend getting guides for specific cities you plan to visit, or finding a guide to Belgium with more thorough city maps. For, while it is a small country, it appears Belgium is too large for Baedeker's to tackle in just one guidebook.

This is a precise, detailed map of the central portion of Brussels. Many of Brussels' suburbs are not included. If you think you will have need of any villages on the outskirts, e.g., Waterloo, you will need a different map.

The Florence City Pack did a great job of giving the top 25 sites to visit in Florence. The picutres were good as were the highlights of each cite. We also found the general city information to be helpful, for example, public restrooms and getting around.

Unfortunately, we found the hours of operation for each site were extremely unreliable, causing us to miss museums and try to build them into our schedule the next day. It seemed that this was the norm for most of the sites they listed. We ended up calling the places to get the visiting hours.

Overall, the book was helpful and easy to carry around because it fits into a pocket. The map was up to date and came in handy. I would reccommend the book as quick reference, but suggest getting a more comprehensive guide for detailed descriptions of the region and sites.

This book is a good high-level snapshot of what Norway has to offer. However, once I was wandering the streets of Oslo, I wished that I had a book with greater selection and one that offered a few more off-beat places to visit. By following this book's direction, I felt like I was traveling down the same road as thousands of other tourists. In addition, the book's maps lacked sufficient detail. I think there are better Norway books to be had.

If you live in the USA, this is a fine book to get you pointed in the right direction. However the book is really written for British or Irish persons. Most of the information is dependant on your being a citizen of an EU nation.

I particularly like the Michelin green series of guide books because they supply an appropriate amount of information about the major sights in each city, and because they also make note of many interesting sights that are less well-known. This guide to Amsterdam is no exception, and the material covered is clearly presented and interesting. The introductory pages are also very well done --- they give just enough historical information, and they provide some nifty extras like an illustrated section on the different gable styles to be seen in Amsterdam. In spite of all this information, the guide is light enough to carry around easily too. However, the index proves to be a MAJOR drawback to this guide, which is organized not alphabetically by sights, but by districts and neighborhoods. This way of organizing the material makes sense, since you can see all the sights in one area of town at once. The problem is that there is no cross-referencing in the index. This means that if you are wandering around and you come across, say, the Koninklijk Paleis and want to read something about it, you cannot look it up since it is not listed in the index. Unless you happen to know that you are presently at the "Dam," the main area of town under which it is listed, you will not be able to locate the information. On our trip to Amsterdam, this feature drove me crazy more times than I can count, since I often wasn't sure which topic heading a particular church or museum was under. If you can deal with that great irritation, the guide is otherwise wonderful.

Michelin guides used to be associated with top ratings, unparalled discriminatory selections. To be awarded a Michelin star or two in the culinary world is a feat de accomplice. However this red book is a downscaled version, apparantly to appeal to the masses and offers very little by way of self evaluation. How do you know just from the listing of facts that the hotel, chateau, restaurant or villa is really worth visiting? Trusting in Michelin may not be your only option. There are many other worthy guides which are descriptive.

First off, the maps are not very helpful. They aren't detailed enough, as far as the little side streets are concerned. Also, the maps are buried in different sections, so if you want to get from Neighborhood A to Neighborhood B you gotta keep on flippin'. The City Center map that's located in the index is adequate for navigating to major points of interests, but only that.

Secondly, while descriptions of restuarants, coffeeshops, htels and stores are accurate, a lot of REALLLLLLLLY cool places that I found on my own there are just not listed.

So, definitely carry it with you but keep in mind that on your own, you will find a lot of people/places and things that haven't been spotted by this guide.

I used this guide book during a recent trip to the Benelux region of Europe. I found the book useful in helping me pick out good restaurants. It also listed the major sites I wanted to see. I did not find the book useful in reserving hotels and describing each site. I especially found the maps to be of poor quality. Many of them mislabeled the location of sites and failed to include important street names that would make it easier to find sites, restaurants, and accomodations. As a frequent traveler, I rely on good maps in guidebooks to get around cities that are unknown to me. Frommer's got me to take wrong turns repeatedly.

Unfortunately, there do not seem to be many books out there covering exclusively the Benelux region of Europe. At least I did not find any that I liked, so Frommer's was the best choice among many bad choices.

When I first started travelling to Europe 25 years ago, the Frommer guides were like beacons. They had a very definite goal in mind: To let you enjoy Europe for $XX dollars a day. Their books were fun and informative; but somewhere along the line, the Frommer people lost touch with their leadership.

When you try to write a book for everybody, you wind up writing for nobody. Let us take accommodations as an example: They are classified as Expensive, Moderate, and Inexpensive. Now I am not on public assistance by any means, yet I can barely afford Frommer's Inexpensive accommodations, which average around more than $100 a night.

There are guidebooks which are good at accommodations and restaurants but not on sights; and there are others (like the superb DK Eyewitness Guides) which concentrate on the sights. I am hard put to place Frommer on this spectrum. In the Netherlands, he downplays the Zuider Zee Museum in Enkhuizen and the Open Air Museum in Arnhem, yet spends 3 chapters on Luxembourg, including one on "Planning a Trip to Luxembourg." Hello! When was the last time you got the wife and kiddies mobilized for a fun filled 3 week vacation in the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg?

On the plus side, the "Best of..." lists are a useful counter to the general lack of emphasis in this guidebook.

If you were visiting the U.S., you would want a guidebook to show you why you might want to spend more time in New York than Youngstown. Once the best of guidebook series, Frommer has been reduced to cataloguing sights. Where's the excitement? Not here.

It is nice to have all the great cities and towns of Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Luxembourg area covered in one handy book. Good maps and suggestions for "best of" experiences. There are seperate maps for attractions, hotels and restaurants in each city. Hotels and restaurants are listed by price range, and family-friendly establishments are noted. There is not a lot of historical background given in this book, and no photographs. The writing style is clear and direct and not too dry. I found the recommended hotels in Amsterdam to be booked up months in advance- obviously many are following Frommer's advice!