Lonely Planet City Guide London (Lonely Planet London) [ペーパーバック]

Although I've vacationed in England several times, I've never been to London proper. On each of my trips, I flew into Gatwick airport, avoiding busy Heathrow, picked up a rental car (right-hand drive, manual transmission and motoring on the "wrong" side of the road--what fun!) and immediately set out for the countryside. My destinations included aviation, automobile and military museums, breweries, Stonehenge (of course) and "off the beaten path" attractions throughout southern England and, via the Channel Tunnel on one trip, in northern France. I gave London a wide berth simply because I generally prefer to avoid congested, chaotic, hard-to-get-around-in major cities. However, I realize that, by skirting London, I missed a great deal of what the country has to offer. So the city is on my "must-see" list for my next vacation to England, whenever that might be. In the meantime, I'll travel there from my armchair using Lonely Planet's outstanding "London" city guide.

Some of the recent Lonely Planet guidebooks I've gotten through the Amazon Vine program have been unimpressive, and have even inspired me to offer editorial comments about how good they used to be compared with how they are now. But "London" is an exception. This is a really good guidebook. Although I lack the first-hand experience with the city to say how accurate or comprehensive it is, I can say for sure that it is attractive, colorful, extremely well organized and exceptionally easy to use. It has a lot of features that I really like. For example:

-- All the maps are found together in the last 45 pages--that's in addition to the larger pull-out city map bound inside the back cover.

-- The city's vast area is organized into 10 neighborhoods, each of which gets from 15 to more than 60 color-coded pages of detailed information on attractions, restaurants, lodging, cultural activities, shopping, entertainment, drinking and nightlife, and so on.

-- Many "Top Sights" sidebars are scattered throughout, set off by eye-catching blue headings, in addition to the main text. Each offers a "Practicalities" listing of such things as the page number of the relevant map, website, physical address, admission fee, hours of operation and Tube stop. These are really handy and easy to use.

-- The detailed floor plans of such places as the British Museum, the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Victoria & Albert Museum are pretty cool.

-- The balance between text and photos tilts heavily toward text. This is not a "picture book." The sparse photos in it are relevant to the text but of secondary importance. Stretches of 30 or 40 pages with nary a photo may put off some readers, but I prefer information to pretty pictures.

-- A very nice and highly informative 50-page-plus "Understand London" section covers modern London, its history, architecture, literature, theatre, dance, art, fashion, music and film. This is an excellent capsule summary that puts what you'll see there into the proper historical and cultural perspective.

Lonely Planet's "London" is an outstanding guidebook that will be one of the first things I stick into my backpack the next time I catch an airliner bound for England.

I am currently planning a trip to the UK and found that this guide, though not the brand I normally gravitate to was a great resource in helping to answer many of my questions and put together a plan for the days we plan to have in London. The guide breaks down to several sections: Plan your trip, which covers top sites, what you need to know, top itineraries, sites that you might like to visit based on your interests, a month to month schedule of festivals, planning a trip with kids, what you can do for free (yeah, some of the museums are free!), a section on museums & galleries, where to eat, drink and what to do for nightlife, entertainment, shopping, sports and a gay/lesbian section. Explore London covers the neighborhoods giving you a flavor of each section, tips, sites and their recommendations. Understanding London, breaks down London today, history, architecture, Literary history, theater & dance, art & fashion, music, film and media. Lastly is the survival guide with transportation, a directory and index. At the very end you have a paper map of London which also includes the bus and tube stops.

The writing about the sites is clear & very informative, telling you what not to miss, and giving you the admission, the location and website and phone #'s for the site. I really enjoy having all this at my fingertips as well as some of the London visitor sites, which is helping me to better plan, along with tips and tricks I'm reading about on the tripadvisor site (highly recommended).

Overall, I felt better after reading through the book that I was starting to narrow down what I wanted to see and where I felt I wanted to spend my tourist $. With a city as lively and large as London, with so much to do it can be a bit overwhelming deciding where to start, but as I saw where things were located and what interested me, it started to feel like it was coming together a bit.

My one personal "con" is that I prefer a glossier book. I also generally gravitate to the guides that have more pictures. The information seems about the same, however, I really do love thumbing through the pictures and enjoy seeing them while I'm trying to decide what goes on the "A" list, and what will get relegated to the "B" list if we have time and $.

Overall, I feel like this book is a very good start in researching London and one that is not so large that I will feel like I can't tote it along with me in my suitcase.

LONDON 2012 by Harper, Fallon, Filou, and Schafer, is a 464-page guidebook, with non-glossy pages, and a large pull-out color map showing features such as RIVER THAMES, BUCKINGHAM PALACE, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE, GOLDEN HINDE, BRITISH MUSEUM, MUSEUM OF EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY, BRITISH LIBRARY, and TOWER OF LONDON, where all of these things are within walking distance of each other, that is, from 1 to 3 miles apart. Golden Hinde is only a replica of Francis Drake's ship (page 170). Mr.Drake is known for discovering one of the most beautiful spots in California, namely, Drake's Bay, located just north of San Francisco. Shakespeare's Globe was reconstructred about 200 meters from the original site, and it was funded by an American, Sam Wanamaker (page 168). What the guidebook fails to state, is that the money actually came from Samuel Scripps (1927-2007), who was a member of the Scripps family (Scripps Institute in San Diego, CA), and who had worked behind the scenes at various Shakespeare festivals in America, e.g., in Berkeley, Riverside, and New York. The Imperial War Museum is detailed on page 276, where we learn that it is located in a former hospital, and that it includes a German V-2 rocket, a Sherman tank, spying equipment, and a Spitfire airplane. Tower of London, the highpoint of all London, is described (pages 141-146), and we learn that it was built in 1078, and includes crown jewels, scaffolds where many famous people spent time hanging around, and exhibitions in the White Tower.

New, let us turn from the features of the pull-out map, to the color photos. There is a color photo or color map, at a frequency of about one every 5 to 6 pages. The photos include a dinosaur inside Natural History Museum (page 10), Westminster Abbey (page 12), changing of the guard (page 22), British Museum (page 39), display of little cakes at Ottolenghi (a deli) (page 46), more little cakes at Bea's of Bloomsbury (a tiny cafe) (page 48), interiors of two jewelry stores (page 69), Palace of Westminster (page 90), five photos from VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, showing costumes, religious statues, and a jewelry box (page __), and garden at Hampton Court Palace (page 293). All the photos were carefully chosen. There are no useless pictures (useless, in my opinion), for example, useless pictures of beds on hotels, or useless pictures that are close-ups of flowers). It might be noted that the frequency of photos is less in this guidebook than, for example, in most of the FODOR'S guidebooks (well, so be it, that can't be helped). The book is not really divided into chapters, but instead, the book is divided into various sections, each from 2-pages long to about 20-pages long, having titles such as: (1) The West End; (2) The City; (3) The South Bank; (4) Kensington & Hyde Park; (5) Clerkenwell; (6) Shoreditch & Spitalfields; (7) The East End & Docklands; and so on.

To sample a bit of the writing, here is a quote about a hotel called ROOKERY (page 322): "This absolute charmer is a warren of 33 rooms that has been built within a row of 18th century Georgian houses and fitted out with antique furniture, including original wood paneling, statues in bathrooms, and artworks, there's a small courtyard garden."

The most appropriate part of this guidebook, and one that distinguishes this guidebook from most other guidebooks, is the TIMELINE (page 344-361). The book needs a timeline, and it does in fact have a timeline, because the science, technology, and law of much of the Western civilization was derived from innovations coming from England. (To give one small example, PATENT LAW, in its modern form, came from the Statute of Monolpolies, and English statute from 1623.) The TIMELINE provides highlights from the years 43AD to 2011BC, and we learn about the Romans, King Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, King John (the villain of the Robin Hood stories, and source of inspiration for the MAGNA CARTA, presently displayed at BRITISH LIBRARY). BRITISH LIBRARY is detailed on pages 235-236, and we learn that it also contains a real Gutenberg Bible, Captain Scott's diary, manuscripts by Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare, Lewis Carrol, original scores by Beethoven, and handwritten lyrics by The Beatles. The TIMELINE also shows Westminster Abbey, built during the time of William the Conqueror's reign. The TIMELINE has small photos corresponding to many of the events or buildings erected, as history unfolded itself. WESTMINSTER ABBEY is detailed on pages 80-82, and we see a half-page photo of the building, and learn that most of the kings of England were crowned here. Its architecture is "Early English Gothic" (1180-1280). The guidebook also tells us that the grounds of the ABBEY include, e.g., Chapter House, Pyx Chamber, Abbey Museum, Poet's Corner, and Isaac Newton's Tomb. The TIMELINE also discloses the 45-year reign of Elizabeth I (a time when religeous tolerance began to take hold), and when the British defeated the Spanish Armada (1588), and we learn the dates of the great plagues (1348 & 1665) and of the Great Fire (1666). The potential tourist who reads the timeline, will hopefully be inspired to purchase a book on each of the topics disclosed, and in this way, will be able to actually understand the buildings, palaces, and monuments, that are viewed during his or her vacation in London.

The TIMELINE (page 357) shows a small picture of ST.PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, noted for surviving Nazi bombing. ST.PAUL'S CATHEDRAL is detailed on pages 147-149, and there is a 1/2-page photo of its dome, a color map of its floor plan, and we learn that it had been completed in 1710, and that a guided tour takes you to the "Geometric Staircase," Chapel of St.Michel, the Whispering Gallery, Stone Gallery, and Golden Gallery, and we learn that the architect was Christopher Wren.

Back to the TIMELINE, and turning to the topic of sports, we learn that in 1966, England beat Germany at WEMBLY STADIUM (page 358). Other parts of the book details various stadiums, e.g., Wembly Stadium, Twickenham Stadium, The Oval (cricket stadium), Lord's Cricket Ground (another cricket stadium), and Wimbledon, and we learn that Wimbledon includes a windmill, tea room, and tennis museum (see pages 72-73, 239, 255, 280, 287, and 302, for sports).

To conclude, I believe that this guidebook mainly concerns a small part of London, that is, central London, and only select spots of interest in this area. There are tons of things that were, by necessity, left out, for example, the beautiful architecture of City Hall in Southwark. The interested traveler reading this guideook will likely find herself or himself to be pleasantly overwhelmed by the dense concentration of tourist attractions in London.