Best Baltic travel book?

[aprildream]

I just looked through Amazon.com and didn't see any good travel guides for the Baaltics. There were individual countries but that would end too much money and too many books. DK Eyewitness travel guide of Great Britain is fantastic but they don't have the Baltics. They are putting out one on European cruising in January but it will be heavy on Mediterranean ports. Any suggestions?

[mushroom]

I ran into the same problem. I ended up getting two: Eyewitness St. Petersburg and Rick Steves Scandinavia. Between the two of these I hope to be able to research my cruise for next July. If you find something I'd love to hear about it.

[Brucemcdou]

I concur with Mushroom, Rick Steves' guide is the most comprehensive, but still does not include St. Petersburg, or London which was our port of origin. For our Jewel Baltic cruise last month we used Eyewitness London, Eyewitness St. Petersburg, and Rick Steves' Scandinavia.

 

Of course, the fact that we left them behind when we were packing didn't help any, but we did find some neat areas just exploring on our own in some of the cities....:rolleyes: Seriously, the guidebooks were very good for planning and background, but when we realized we'd forgotten the books we allowed ourselves to just experience the various cities from public transit, stopping when we saw something interesting. We still saw and learned a lot and think we probably soaked up a little more local culture than if we'd been following Rick Steves' walking tours slavishly. We did have a Denrus guide for St. Petersburg, however.

 

The Baltic itinerary was our favorite cruise so far, due to the many interesting and easy to explore ports. Have a great time!

[dbh62ark]

I like the Eyewitness Guides for previewing locations prior to trips but find them to be useless for practical information such as opening and closing times as the information is either nonexistent in those guides or is dated (those books are not frequently updated).

 

We cruised the Baltics twice, and I checked out all the guide books from the library. The one that I found to be the most useful was the Frommers Scandinavia guide. I suppose I should mention at the point that we are very independent travelers and prefer going out on our own in port. The Baltics ports, other than St. Petersburg, are ideal for independent travel because most of the cruise ship docks are near the main sites, and English is widely spoken. We constantly ran into groups of passengers on ship's excursions, and we saw 2-3 times as much as they did in the time alloted without going at a manic pace. The only section of Rick Steves book that I found to be superior to Frommers was the chapter on Tallinn; Frommers does not cover Tallinn. The walking tours in the Frommers book are excellent, and most of the ports will have a "what to see in one day" section that will help you with planning. Even if you choose to see different sites, this will help you to organize so that you don't backtrack during the day to lose precious time.

 

Happy travels to all,

Donna

[dakrewser]

And just so you won't get odd easy on this, we found that the Steves' book was superior to the Frommer's guide. In fact, we ended up leaving the Frommer at home.

 

Take a look at both before making your choice...

[mushroom]

I suppose I prefer Steves because he has a way of giving a light-sided approach to the destinations. He presents some very detailed information with a tongue-in-cheek description. This enables me to actually remember some of what I've read in advance without having to drag the book along for the day.

[tclowe]

Just to confuse you more, I think it is hard to stick with just one book. I copied a few pages from books at the public library and bought two books - Rick Steves and Lonely Planet. The Rick Steves book was very helpful in identifying landmarks with his sketches and I really used his shortcuts to view palaces and museums. Some of these places are massive and you just can't spend one day or two days at one place. His remarks and recommendations when using public transportation is right on the money.

 

But I also used Lonely Planet's Scandinavian Europe for their concise descriptions of places that I may want to visit, the book has detailed city center maps with actual street names (vs. Rick Steves' sketches), and better recommendations for mid-range and high-range hotels and dining options.

 

So during our August trip, I just copied the pages and city maps from each book that I needed for each city, and used the stapled pages for each city as we arrived. Less bulky.

 

Happy Planning.

[eldercruser]

We found the Insights Guide St. Petersburg very helpful for background information. Also the individual city tourist internet sites were also very helpful.

[mycruz]

In addition to Rick Steve's book, you may want to order the John Lawrence CD. We found so much insider info on this CD that played while we were sailing and wished we had ordered it pre cruise. order at www.johnlawrencecd.com

[lionheart]

Rick Steves is pretty good. Lonely Planet is also good and try Bradt for Estonia. I made copies of maps and pages I wanted so not to bring the whole book. Plus for each port I made my notes and must see attractions on one page which I carried with me. The internet is good to since most attractions have their own site and the sites infomation is usually more up to date then the books. Prices and hours of operation do change often so go to their web site and even email someone to confirm times and prices.

 

Kurt

[LKN-NC]

BTW there are DK guides for each of the Scandinavian countries separately, plus I found ones for Stockholm and St Petersburg cities. They are beautiful and make good previews/souveniers of the trip. And like the others, Rick Steves Scandinavia is the only book that made the trek with us, it was useful in each port except St Pete.

[itsjb1]

I agree with most of the above. The John Lawrence CD was great. We watched it several times before our trip and made notes to take with us. If you are on Princess the tour talk will play on the tvs. If you are not on Princess you can take a portable CD player and play each port talk the day before as a refresher. We also used the Rick Steeves book.

 

For the person that was asking about London, we were in London pre cruise anothe time. We found the AAA Spiral Guide for London to be an excellent book and also easy to take with during the day.

[Joyfredsblondecruiser]

Thank you all for the wonderful information. Happy Sailing, Joy