|
Albania, 2nd: The Bradt Travel Guide
|
| List Price: | $22.95 |
| Price: | $15.38 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com
19 new or used available from $10.61
Average customer review:
Product Description
Features include:
>Archaeological attractions and museums plus historic background
>In-depth coverage of the capital, Tirana
>Cultural background including topics such as communist nostalgia and blood feuds
>Easy-to-follow guide to the Albanian language
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #81268 in Books
- Published on: 2006-08-01
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 280 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Gillian Gloyer is a linguist who spent four years in Albania from 1998 to 2002, when she was involved in the development of a democratic political infrastructure for the future of the country.
Customer Reviews
travel guide works
i live in albania as a foreigner employed by the UN. we have found this guide to be mostly accurate. many guides on albania miss things or are just plain wrong. this is one of the better ones--take it fromo a resident who has bought many bad travel guides about this little explored country.
The first was better
The second edition isnt fully rewritten, there are a lot of things which changed thence, but arent mentioned. ( Banka e Kursimeve since 2005 is Raiffeisen bank )
The style of the second one is for the more stupid travelleres: there is more hotel and restaurant addresses, less history, more advices how to travel by bike and how to tramping, but less about the feeling of the country. And there are a lot of boxes about unimportant english people, who once spent in this country some time, and nothing about the people, who have made more about Albania...
The Only Practical Guide to Albania!
If you want to travel around Albania and do more than just hit the few most visited highlights, this is no doubt the book to take.
It is the only English-language guide devoted to Albania alone, and it offers a good coverage of the places and things to see, fairly up to date details of transport and accomodation options, decent maps of both regions and individual towns or cities, as well as well-written background information on culture and history. All the stuff you would expect from good practical guidebooks like the better-known Lonely Planet series (whose coverage of Albania is dismal!).
It is also fairly balanced in covering both budget and upmarket places to stay, something other books often fail at.
So why only 4 stars?
Well, some of the maps would need to be more accurate - they sometimes showed places on the wrong street or corner. Also, in a few cases, practical details were missing, with the existence of accomodation being mentioned, but not the usual details on how much it cost. Same goes for transport info.
Finally, and most mystifyingly, the author has chosen to use non-standard place names ("definite", conjugated forms) even though she herself admits this form is not what you will see in Albania on maps, destination signs of buses or road-signs!
However these shortcomings are well outweighed by all the useful info in the book. If you are planning to tour this little-visited country independently, don't leave home without a copy!
