Question:
Has anyone any opinions on Amsterdam guide books and guide books in general ?I find the Rough Guides the best when I go anyplace but I'm wondering whatpeople find best for A'dam. Yesterday someone asked me for a guide book toAmsterdam and all I had was a pocket Berlitz. Maybe I should have somethingelse handy for visitors ? (It's difficult to judge guide books for touristswhen you've lived here a while)

Answer: I'll expand on what I said in my previous posting to give an opinionof all the ones I've looked at.

BAEDEKER'S AMSTERDAM - Fairy good compact collection of basicinformation, though not very exciting.

INSIGHT CITY GUIDE AMSTERDAM - Good for getting the general feel ofthe city; less good on specific information. Lots of pretty pictures.

FROMMER'S AMSTERDAM - Very good for hotels and restaurants and forgeneral travel tips; not particularly good for sightseeing.

MICHELIN NETHERLANDS - This is very good for an overview of whatplaces in the country as a whole you want to see.

REAL GUIDE AMSTERDAM - A good guide with a countercultural slant.Particularly good on cafes, bars, and nightlife; also on cheaper hotelsand restaurants.

LONELY PLANET WESTERN EUROPE - The Netherlands section is fairly goodthough necessarily short, since the books as a whole covers so muchterritory.

AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL GUIDE: AMSTERDAM, ROTTERDAM, AND THE HAGUE -Very good on hotels, restaurants, and shopping -- their recommendationsalways turn out to be knowledgable. Also good for general travel tips(transportation, money, etc.) OK but not great on sightseeing.

SLOW WALKS IN AMSTERDAM. I found this book slightly disappointing.The walks seemed well researched, but I felt I could put better onestogether myself after doing research in these other guide books.

BLUE GUIDE HOLLAND. This is absolutely the best for sightseeing -museums, buildings, geographical features, etc. It's really so farabove the rest that it's the only one to be considered as a sightseeingguide.

I should also mention the Michelin Netherlands map as the mostuseful map of the country that I've found, and the somewhat hard to getCito-Plan map of Amsterdam (published The Hague) as the best city map.