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This volume in the award-winning Eyewitness series shows Germany at its best, from the Baltic Sea to the Romantic Rhine to the Black Forest. Visit the world-class cities of Berlin and Munich with the help of 3-D aerial maps, floorplans of the best museums, cutaways of historic buildings. Make the most of the beautiful countryside with the help of pictorial maps and tours. Learn more about German culture with special features on music, art and literature or gear up for outdoor activities, from skiing to hiking in the Alps.

Review

‘The great affection which is penned so effectively into this walking guide to one mountain district … reveals the work of a specialist.’ (Van Greaves, High) ‘Another Cicerone Press walking guide from the tried and trusted Kev Reynolds stable. The format is familiar, user friendly and crammed with useful and essential information about the geography, places to stay, how to get there and of course 120 route descriptions in the eleven areas that make up the Valais region of Switzerland. … Mouth watering colour photos illustrate the descriptions.’ (Richard Ayres, The Leader)

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The Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, Zinarothorn, Ober Gabelhorn, Dent Blanche, Weisshorn, Bietschhorn, Grand Combin – these are some of the most dramatic mountains in Europe. Here, they form a backdrop to a series of routes that should answer the dreams of any keen mountain walker. Best known, perhaps, for the resorts of Zermatt and Saas Fee, the Valais district of Switzerland is also the location of the Lotschental and Turtmanntal, the Vals d’Anniviers, Herens, Bagnes and Ferret – valleys in which there are numerous alp hamlets nestling among the pastures. There are also dozens of small lakes, the longest glacier in the Alps, pristine snowfields, meadows full of flowers, marmots that will eat out of your hand, and no shortage of accommodation, ranging from low-cost dormitories and campsites to the grandest of hotels. In this, the third edition of his popular guide, Kev Reynolds has selected and described 120 routes that represent the very best of this magical region. Rewritten and with a new design, fresh maps and colour photos throughout, “Walking in the Valais” is your passport to some memorable walking holidays in this Alpine wonderland.

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Amazon.com Review

Jews don’t always put Germany on the top of their travel destination list, but the fact is that outside of Israel, no country contains more important and beautiful Jewish historical sites than does Germany. Weissensee, the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, is in Berlin, there’s a lovely ritual bath (mikveh) in Friedberg dating back to the 13th century, and there’s a rare, surviving Jugendstil synagogue in Ausburg. From Aachen to Würzburg, nearly 200 sites left out of most guide books are described and detailed, including what there is to see (often with color pictures), what the history is, and most importantly, how to get there.

In Ansbach there’s a synagogue from the 18th century that escaped destruction during the “Reichskristallnacht” of 1938. Its Torah was burned, but the building itself was left unhurt. Annual memorial services are held on November 9 (the date of kristallnacht) in this Baroque synagogue, attended by Catholics, Protestants, and Jews from throughout Bavaria. In Hofgeismar there’s a fine Judaica museum that tells the story, through its archive of texts and pictures, of a Jewish community that dates back to 1470, and there’s a cemetery that was started in 1695. The last burial of a Hofgeismar Jew was in 1935, but the cemetery contains Jewish displaced persons who died in 1946 and 1947, plus a memorial of a gravestone and a buried piece of soap, erected in 1945 by Jewish concentration camp survivors.

Documenting the history of individual settlements throughout Germany, as well as what remains to be seen of them, this unique guide keeps the history alive and makes possible an unusual German tour. –Stephanie Gold

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Whether travellers are searching for history, religion, or their roots, they will not be disappointed by the countless discoveries to be made with the help of this key to the open doors of Jewish Germany.

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“The Rough Guide Map Germany” combines clear modern mapping and bang-up-to-date research, and is the essential companion to anyone travelling around this fascinating and varied country. Whether you’re exploring the snow-capped peaks of the Bavarian Alps or the valleys of the Rhine, the “Rough Guide Map” provides invaluable information to help you find your way. It is printed on waterproof and rip-proof Polyart paper, and includes detail on everything from road numbers and railways to National parks and airport locations.

About the Author

Produced for Rough Guides by World Mapping Project

Review

‘An interesting long circular walk for those who have done the Tour of Mont Blanc and want to find a route that is less crowded. There are bad-weather alternatives, and shortside walks. As always with Kev Reynolds, the introduction is comprehensive. This route (or part of it) could, I think, be used for an Alpine debut.’ Irish Mountain Log Magazine, Summer 2006

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Making a horsehoe loop among some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in all the Swiss Alps, the brand new “Tour of the Jungfrau Region” is destined to become one of the classic walks of Europe. In a journey of 9-10 days the walker visits pastures, ridges, summits and passes, skirts exquisite mountain lakes, and gazes on waterfalls, gorges and glaciers – all in the shadow of such iconic peaks as Wetterhorn, Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. Accommodation is both plentiful and atmospheric, and the route has lots of bad-weather alternatives. Despite the nearby presence of popular resorts like Grindelwald, Wengen, Lauterbrunnen and Murren, “The Tour of the Jungfrau Region” explores some suprisingly remote landscapes, including part of a World Natural Heritage site.

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Review

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“Michelin The Green Guide Germany, 4e”

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The long-standing Michelin Travel Guides are an ideal travel companion for travelers who really want to connect with the world. Get to know the local way of life through detailed background information on the country, people, and culture. Quickly identify the best places to visit using Michelin’s star rating system. The best sites are highlighted on the sites map or you can follow a pre-planned driving tour. With the Michelin Travel Guide to Languedoc, fly a kite in Le Cap d’Agde or ramble through the largest fortress in Europe in Carcassonne. Take a canoe for a close-up view of the cliffs that line the beautiful Tarn Gorges or golf in the Mediterranean light of Toulouse.

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INTRODUCTION

“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Orson Welles as Harry Lime, in The Third Man (1949)

Never has one throwaway movie line done so much to damage the reputation of a whole country. Even now, despite being one of the most visited countries in Europe, Switzerland remains one of the least understood. The facts are that until national reconciliation in 1848, Switzerland was the most consistently turbulent, war-torn area of Europe (so much for brotherly love), and yet, both before and after it found stability, it brought forth such literary and artistic pioneers as Hans Holbein, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paul Klee, Hermann Hesse and Alberto Giacometti (so much for the cuckoo clock ? a Bavarian invention, anyway).

But two centuries of tourism have left their mark: faced by an ever-increasing onslaught of visitors, these days the Swiss are content to abide by a quaint stereotype of Switzerland that?s easily packaged and sold ? the familiar Alpine idyll of cheese and chocolate, Heidi and the Matterhorn ? while keeping the best bits for themselves. Come for a “Lakes and Mountains” package, or a week of skiing, or a short city-break, and you?ll get all the pristine beauty, genteel calm and well-oiled efficiency of the Switzerland that the locals deem suitable for public consumption. The other Switzerland ? the one the Swiss inhabit ? needs time and patience to winkle out of its shell, but can be an infinitely more rewarding place to explore.

Within this rugged environment, community spirit is perhaps stronger than anywhere else in Europe. Since the country is not an ethnic, linguistic or religious unity, it has survived ? so the Swiss are fond of saying ? simply through the will of its people to resolve their differences. Today, a unique style of “bottom-up” democracy ensures real power still rests with the people, who seem to vote almost monthly on a series of referenda affecting all aspects of life from local recycling projects to national economic policy. The constitution devolves power upwards from the people to municipal governments and up again to the regions (known as cantons), only as a last resort granting certain powers to the federal government.

This kind of decentralized structure means that the cantons ? which are, in essence, tiny self-governing republics who have volunteered to join together ? have mostly held onto their own, unique flavours. Although Swiss people value their shared Swissness above all, they also cherish their own home-town identity and their differences from their neighbours.

Tensions exist between the four language communities, as they do between Catholic and Protestant, or between urban and rural areas, while regional characteristics remain sharply defined and diverse. Local pride is fuelled by a range of traditional folkloric customs, most of which stem from pagan or medieval Christian festivals. Most prominent of these is carnival, held around the country on or around Mardi Gras, the last day before Lent. The most exuberant celebrations, held in Luzern, Bern and Basel, feature bands, masked parades, street dancing and spontaneous partying that belie the stereotype of a placid, unadventurous Switzerland. A host of smaller events fills out the calendar and it?s still easily possible to stumble on village festivals that have been staged by local people for centuries past.

This sense of cultural continuity sits oddly with the fact that Switzerland has grown into one of the world?s richest countries. Its economy is small-scale but thoroughly modern: traditional industries such as watchmaking and textiles now thrive by focusing closely on the luxury end of the market and have ceded prime position to engineering, pharmaceuticals and service industries galore. Tourism has been a high earner since the mid-nineteenth century, when the Alps became both a fashionable destination for wealthy travellers and a prescribed retreat for sufferers from respiratory diseases needing curative sunshine and fresh mountain air. And yet the country, seized by an increasingly anachronistic national Kantönligeist, still stands alone. In the 1940s, Switzerland was surrounded by hostile Axis powers; these days, it?s encircled by the “friendly” EU. With the end of the Cold War, recent damaging revelations of Swiss collaboration with the Nazi Third Reich, and increasingly close ties amongst Western European nations, Swiss neutrality rings ever more hollow ? and yet, far from embracing a wider perspective, the country has collectively taken a step into conservatism. Commentators are noting sadly that Switzerland is only now embarking on the kind of multiethnic social integration that its neighbours began in the 1950s.

Having taken centuries to bolt their country together from diverse elements, the Swiss seem instinctively to return to their sense of community spirit, expressed most tangibly in the order and cleanliness you?ll see on show everywhere. Yet the sterility so decried by Graham Greene (who wrote Harry Lime?s jibe about brotherly love), if it characterizes any part of the country, applies only to the glossy, neatly packaged tourist idyll of lakes and mountains. The three great Swiss cities of Geneva, Zürich and Basel are crammed with world-class museums and galleries. In Zürich and Lausanne, there?s a humming arts scene and underground club culture that feeds nightlife as vibrant as anything you?ll find in much larger European cities.

The landscapes are dominated by the Alps and their foothills, but mountains aren?t the only story. In the north and centre are lush, rolling grasslands epitomized by the velvety green hills of the Emmental, traditional dairy-farming country. Vineyards rise tiered above Lake Geneva, the Rhône valley and the Rhine. The fairytale southeast is cut through by wild, high-sided valleys, lonely, dark and thickly forested. Most surprisingly of all, bordering Italy in the south you?ll find subtropical Mediterranean-style flower gardens, sugarloaf hills and sunny, palm-fringed lakes. For a small, little-regarded mid-continental country with a profound image problem, Switzerland has plenty more to offer than most visitors suspect.

About the Author

Matthew Teller is an experienced and accomplished travel writer. He is also the author of the Rough Guide to Jordan.

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Review

More e-Books from MobileReference – Best Books. Best Price. Best Search and Navigation (TM)

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An illustrated city guide, phrasebook, and maps. Indulge Yourself with a personal tour guide on Your PDA. FREE General chapter, basic phrasebook, and a map in the trial version.

Features

• Fully illustrated.
• Historical overviews.
• Interesting facts.
• Street Map, Transportation Maps, and more.
• Museums hours and tickets info.
• Navigate from Table of Contents or search for the words or phrases.
• Access the guide anytime, anywhere – at home, on the train, in the subway, during a flight.
• Add Bookmarks
• Text annotation and mark-up
• Automatic synchronization between the handheld and the desktop PC. You could read half of the book on the handheld, then finish reading on the desktop. Annotations and drawings are also synchronized.

Table of Contents

General: About | Travel offices | History | Economy | Sports | Climate | Tourism | Stay safe | Cope | Sleep

Maps: Hamburg | Districts | S-Bahn | Germany

Phrasebooks: About | Pronounciation | Phraselist | Language

Transport: Overview | Get in | Get around | Railway | Hamburg Airport | Finkenwerder Airport | Hauptbahnhof | Metro | S-Bahn | Tunnels

Landmarks: Buildings & Structures | Churches | Harbour | Parks | Streets

Attractions: Buy | Do | Events | Nightlife | Zoo | Fischmarkt | Dungeon | Miniature Wonderland

Culture: Hammonia | Music | Museums | Theatres | Zitronenjette

Eat & Drink: Cuisine | Eat | Drink