Syria (Bradt Travel Guides) Paperback – Illustrated, June 15, 2010

Good bookHelped in my travel

I just returned from two weeks in Syria with a friend who had brought Darke's guidebook with her, and we found it extremely useful. We had no trouble finding the sites and amenities she describes, and her accounts of sites outside Damascus are thorough and well-informed. She has done her homework on the history and archaeology, and the book contains dozens of helpful vignettes about daily life, customs, dress, language, religious practice, etc. that illuminated what we were seeing. The book is well-written and we enjoyed the incisive and occasionally tart asides. We were mid-level tourists, not budget, and it may be that the guide is better suited to the former. For the first-time traveler, it offered just the quantity and quality of information that were needed.

As someone living in Syria for over a year, I cannot recommend this guidebook, except for someone on a package tour, using the guide only for information on tourist sites. For independent, and particularly budget travelers, the guidebook is simply too unclear. The maps are extremely simplified, which is a serious problem in the winding alleyways of the old city of Damascus, and I find it hard to follow her directions to various restaurants having lived in the country for some time. As a visitor, I think it would be nearly impossible.The restaurant and hotel reviews are generally incredibly simplistic. For restaurants, half of each review discusses whether or not alcohol is served, while frequently ignoring both price and food quality. Hotels are described with similar brevity, and the focus is clearly on the upper end.The descriptions of various sites, as well as the historical, cultural and political background is reasonably well done. However, I don't think that it this guide has more information or is in any way clearer than the equivalent Lonely Planet guidebook, which I would recommend over this book for any traveler.

We tried to use this book during the week we spent in Syria. This book seemed the better choice, since it is the most recent guide.After half a day in Damascus, we gave up and went to buy the Lonely PlanetMain flaws:-- the maps are completely unsufficient (we had to ask other travellers on the street to look at the maps in their books). Apparently the author has drawn them herself. Afterwards we visited Damascus again, with our other guide book, and we enjoyed Damascus a lot more.-- Lists of places to eat and to stay are very short, and contain very few budget places (typically 1 or 2, which is absolutely useless. Furthermore descriptions are rather brief). There is more attention to top end places.On the pro side:++ The book spends much attention to history and culture, some parts are nice to read as background. Strange detail: the author claims that women never work as waitress in Syria, and in our week we saw several of them.Note: last year we use other Bradt guides (Zambia, Malawi), much to our satisfaction.