Belgium Books

Howell does a great job examining how Renaissance women protected their interests, and the interests of their children. her book is extremely detailed and well researched. Although my historical interests are as far away from Renaissance Europe, this book sure raised my interest level

We went to Benelux last summer and drove all over the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (as well as Germany) with this map. We did try to use a navigation system also but sometimes it wasn't working or would give weird directions (like 'turn right here' and there wasn't any road!) so this map was indispensible.

I haven't taken it to Germany yet. We go in June but it looks like it has a lot of roads and directions and detailed info. 100% better than Rick Steves map I also ordered.

Once you've bought a Michelin map you'll never go back. Country names are offered in multiple languages (including the native language of that country as well as English). I navigated all over Germany and Austria with this map and we didn't have a single problem. Now I keep buying more and more of them and refuse to use any other brand. Michelin maps are printed one sided (which you may see as a plus or a minus).

I recently spent 4 days in Belgium, staying in Bruges and visiting Antwerp. (I stopped in Brussels briefly and used the internet to plan my few hours there.)

The small size of this guide gave me concern that it was too superficial. To the contrary, it provides a surprising amount of information by focusing on only the sites that could be covered during 2 days in each city. In 2 days, I covered all the recommended Bruges sites. In one day I covered about half of the Antwerp sites. I supplemented the information with books and audioguides available at the museums, as I would have done anyway, even with a thicker guide book.

In terms of contents, the guide provides a brief but useful overview of the region and for each of the three cities a city map (the usual great Michelin quality), listing of must-see sights (usual Michelin star system), and descriptions of those sites, even with several good pictures. It also provides an abbreviated list of hotels and restaurants, but these are not budget recommendations. (You'll probably need another source to find a hotel - I found mine on the internet.)

Best of all, this book is compact and light, and really does fit in any pocket you have.

We just returned from an awesome Beer Tour of Belgium. I was attempting to get a map locally (In the Santa Cruz County, CA area). None to be found at any bookstore. All out. Help. Then I remembered good old Amazon. Got on line and found one and it was shipped in time to go on the trip with us. Got to spend a wonderful evening with our itinerary the day before we left finding and circling the tiny towns and big cities we were going to visit.
Many thanks

All of the Green Guides are superlative. Because they list the cities in each book in alphabetical order, it's always easy to find exactly where you are, what to see & what to do.

As always, this Michelin Green Guide is an excellent first book for any tourist. Great city maps, lots of details on the history, culture, architecture, etc. of the country. No info on hotels or restaurants; that's the job of other guides. But for city/town info, there is no better guide!

Before I moved to Belgium from the US, I had heard that "you can consistently eat better in Brussels than you can in Paris." They were right. Belgium, and especially Brussels, has incredible food and this guidebook only adds pleasure to the search for the perfect waterzoi!

This looked like the best road atlas on the stateside market. I am going to use it for geocaching.com while I am in country, and I don't want to get lost in some Belgian farmland, as I suspect is easy to do. I will update if the real world, and the atlas world don't add up. This one is nice, if just for the amount of detail, and the city close ups. Durability is good, with the spiral binding.