Blue Guide Albania (Blue Guides)

Rating:
Summary: Very complete
Review: My personal nickname for the book is Blue Guide Greater Albania, because it also covers Kosovo and the Albanian speaking areas in other countries.

The number of interesting places mentioned is very extensive. But the selection seems to be a bit random and the threshold very low. Yet it is the best guide available at the moment.

Rating:
Summary: This guide will be a good asset - conditionally recommend
Review: So you want to go to Europe, but want a change? Somewhere different, unusual, off the beaten path and not crowded by tourists? Go Albania.

For 50 years Albania was literally shut away from the rest of the world by a fanatical communist dictator. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of European Communism released the proud and warm people from the deep sleep. Slowly they are coming alive to the rest of the world. While previously it was nearly impossible for Westerners to visit Albania, the door is now wide open. But be forewarned, Albania is the poorest country in all of Europe, and there are still many practical difficulties for the common tourist. The first place to start is with a tour guide.

Since Blue Guide: Albania is the only guide to this country in print, that alone makes it a valuable travel aid. Blue Guides are published by W.W. Norton and are unique travel guides that strongly promote a country's history, culture and archaeology.

Author James Pettifer, a Balkans expert, has selected the easiest places in Albania to visit; namely, places where accommodations can be found. He furnishes the traveler with good, practical information, although it is dated since it was written pre-1996. The hotels and restaurants listed are almost non-existent and fall bellow the most remedial standards of travel guides for other countries. The guide's strengths are history, culture and archaeology - and in this area Pettifer excels.

If you are traveling to Albania, this guide will be a good asset - conditionally recommended.

Rating:
Summary: the best available guide for Albania
Review: The Blue Guide is the best guide for Albania. This guide has informations about everything (history, culture, language, places to have seen, hotels, restaurants) and mentions everything that can be visited. Unfortunately, the maps are really bad. The situation in Albania changes very quickely - the traveller has to know this. But all the other guides are older and have more wrong informations. James Pettifer knows Albania very well and visited all the country.

Rating:
Summary: Obsolete guidance
Review: This book was indeed very useful and relevant as a travel guide when it was released nearly six years ago, but the changes in Albania since that time have been so sweeping that much of the practical information, such as accommodation, is nearly obsolete. I can personally testify that it is a fantastic and gorgeous nation of diverse cities and landscapes worthy of a long stay. For anyone who doesn't have the benefit of personal connection to serve as guidance there, an updated objective travel guide on Albania is certainly overdue.