Customer Reviews
Do yourself a favour choose another book - By: Rusty, 27 May 2008 
Having just returned from my first visit to Turkey I can only agree with the negative comments voiced by other reviewers. The general tone veers between sneering at the reality of turkish society & derision of anything that remotely relates to the general tourist. All this would be bad enough were the text not hopelessly out of date. Selecting a couple of examples at random from an extraordinary list of errors; Descriptions of the Bodrum penisula include references to sailing schoolsin Bitez. Guys! - all the schools moved further round the peninsua at least 3 years ago. For Ephesus the visitor is instructed to walk from the lower to upper gates (insane if you've ever been there), no warning of the extreme heat everyone will experience - evenin Spring. Riddled with factual inaccuracies & so superficial as to be useless. I threw my copy away & just asked the locals, who are amazing people (not that you'd ever expect that if you read this book).
Not the best - By: BookWorm, 06 Apr 2008 
Not a bad guide, but not great either. There are only colour picturesin the introductory 'highlights' section - the rest of the images are black & white, & not very clear, which is a shame. There are colour insert sections on food, sports & architecture, but these would have been better used for a collection of a wider range of images.
The maps are not particularly easy to follow & miss off streets. The layout is the same asin other Rough Guides, which at least makes it familiar to those who've used other books from the series. The separation of practical information (in the front), & more academic information (e.g. history) (in the back), from the sections on regions & places can make it quite hard to follow & involves a lot of leafing through.
I didn't rely on it too much for factual information (e.g. prices), but I did notice that quite often the information pertaining to the sights e.g. buildings, or to history were at odds with the information given by my (highly qualified) Turkish guide. Later checks against other sources backed up the tour guide rather than this book.
Particularly frustrating is the language section, which lacks any phoenetic spellings for even the commonest words. This makes it useless for practical purposes. I suppose the aim is to make you buy the separate phrasebook - but that's not much use when you're backpacking & the brick-like size of the guide alone is weighing you down.
Overall, I didn't find this the most user friendly or helpful of guidebooks to the region.
Useful In Parts But Subtley Islamophobic - By: Junaid, 30 May 2007 Beware: this Rough Guide has a distinct anti-Ottoman & anti-Muslim undercurrent which runs through the book. If you want a factual book about where thnigs arein Turkey -this book suffices. However every opportunity is taken to introduce ahistorical & lurid tales of Ottoman barbarism. Every chance to denigrate & belittle Turkey's Islamic culture & history is availed of. For example the magnificent Sultan Ahmet mosquein Turkey is just dismissed as a pedestrian attempt to rival the Hagia Sophia, Rumi's encompassing poetry of Muslim compassion is dismissed as an anomalyin Muslim religiousity.
Handy, but ANZACs beware - By: , 14 Jun 2002 
I bought this book for the purpose of planning my journey through Turkey for ANZAC day as is done by thousands of Australians & New Zealanders each year. Unfortunately details regarding the area & ANZAC day itself were not useful & some comments made reagrding Australians & New Zealanders were insulting.
Fine for the rest of the my travels however with some insiteful historical information. Just avoid if you are gong to ANZAC COVE.
Fantastic - By: , 10 Jul 2001 
I used this book on holidayin Turkey last year & I found it had all the vital information required to make my holiday a greater experience. Every detail beaches, restaurants, customs, food & what to watch out for were all explained very clearly. On the subject of food, I was advised NEVER to eat mussels sold by locals on the beach, but unfortunately I read the book 1 day too late! You can work the rest out for yourself!
