The Rough Guide to Wales

by Paul Whitfield, Mike Parker, Rough Guides

Book Overview

This guide takes an enthusiastic look at the recent surge in Welsh confidence brought on by successes in music, art and film and in events such as the establishment of the National Assembly and the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843536072
• ISBN13: 9781843536079
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Length: 599 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Off the Beaten Track to Wales...

The 2006 "Rough Guide to Wales" features a part of Great Britain generally off the beaten track for most tourists coming from the United States. Although a small component part of the United Kingdom, Wales has fiercely maintained its independent character over the centuries. Travelers will find a geographically varied region celebrating its Celtic origins while welcoming tourists. The Rough Guide to Wales combines vital visitor information, maps, graphics, and photographs in a compact format, along with the expected Rough Guide opinions on where to go and what to see. Wales offers some dramatic shoreline and equally dramatic hill country in Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons. Wales also features an excellent selection of castles, many in good repair and most open to the public. If some popular areas, especially along the seacoast, have become overrun with caravan (trailer) parks, other parts are relatively uncluttered and offer spectacular attractions. Wales has been a tourist destination for the British for many years and the infrastructure for accomodations, eating, and traveling are both well-developed and offer options across a broad price range. The Rough Guide breaks down Wales into seven geographic regions in order to address to address the principal attractions, accomodation, and information on how to get around. Website addresses are generously included for those needing additional information about hours, rates, and times of specific facilities. The last portion of the guide features some interesting narrative essays on the history of Wales, its modern sense of nationalism, its natural history, and its music and other cultural attractions. This guide is highly recommended to visitors to Wales. Coupled with the appropriate Ordnance Survey maps, the guide should be a very sufficient planning resource for most vacations.

A great guide

This guide breaks Wales down into several sections, and does a great job of highlighting the best things to do and see in each part. I would recommend the Rough Guides to anyone - a great series.

Best Wales Guide out there

I searched and searched for a good travelers guide to Wales. this is the best I found. I did utilize the wales visitors bureau for more options in accomodations, but if your doing a driving tour of Wales, this book is perfectly set up for that. It hits every little highway and biway, town by town, region by region. We are planning our itinerary by it.

A very useful guide

This was the first Rough Guide I bought for the first of my solovacations. I chose it after comparing with various other guides,such as the Blue Guide and others. This provided an immenseamount of detail on all sorts of historical sites, little towns,etc. and was of great value in planning out my trip. One thing that keeps me from giving it 5 stars is that I later discovered that there are a number of "dark age" monuments (forts, inscribed stones, gravesites, etc.) that it doesn't list; it concentrates on larger places. I would have liked to have seen alot of those, as dark age Britain is an interest of mine. To be fair, other guides leave those things out, too, and I had to find the info in archeological and historical references.

Best guidebook I have found

I studied at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth for six months this spring as an American Exchange Student. In preperation, I bought all sorts of guidebooks (AAA's Britian Book, Rick Steve's, just to name a few) They were very good, but the detail and ease of use of the Rough Guide made it the one I used most. I highly reccomend it. A big thank you to Mike Parker, Paul Whitfield, and everyone at Rough Guides.