Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when cruising the Mediterranean.In this guide, Rick Steves focuses on some of the grandest sights in Europe. As always, he has a plan to help you have a meaningful cultural experience while you’re there—even with just a few hours in port.Inside you'll find one-day itineraries for sightseeing at or near the major Mediterranean ports of call, including:Barcelona, Marseille, Toulon, Nice, Villefranche-sur-Mer, and MonacoFlorence, Rome, Naples, and VeniceDubrovnik, Split, Athens, Mykonos, and SantoriniIstanbul and EphesusRick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports explains how to get into town from the cruise terminal, shares sightseeing tips, and includes self-guided walks and tours. You'll learn which destinations are best for an excursion—and which you can confidently visit on your own. You'll also get tips on booking a cruise, plus hints for saving time and money on the ship and in port.
Series: Rick Steves
Paperback: 1316 pages
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing; 3 edition (September 16, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1612387683
ISBN-13: 978-1612387680
Product Dimensions: 1.5 x 4.8 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #14,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Travel > Food, Lodging & Transportation > Cruises #12 in Books > Travel > Europe > General #78 in Books > Travel > Specialty Travel
I bought Anne Vipond's "Mediterranean By Cruise Ship" (6th ed.) and Rick Steve's "Mediterranean Cruise Ports" (3rd ed.) in anticipation of my first Mediterranean cruise this coming May. I'm posting the same review on each book's page to compare them, as they present two quite different approaches to preparing for your cruise. At the outset, I emphasize that each book has its merits and shortcomings and I found value in each for different reasons. First I'll give a brief overview of each book, followed by a comparison of the two on some key issues.Overview of Anne Vipond's 6th edition of "Mediterranean by Cruise Ship" (AV):I found AV to be very informative and it was very helpful to actually see some of the attractions and sites on this cruise in brilliant color. It is styled as a "DK Eyewitness" type of book, with rich illustrations, quick facts, and color maps of the major sights and locations. If you're looking for specific details about museums, restaurants, and hotels, this isn't the book for you; in fact, the "DK Eyewitness" series offers more detailed recommendations and information than this book does. But there isn't a "DK Eyewitness Mediterranean Cruise Port" book, so you'd have to buy a separate book for each port to get the same general coverage and attractive glossy color photo layout.This is also a good book for a quick introduction to the Mediterranean region, although in this day and age I can't see how this is an improvement over a thorough Internet search. This introduction is necessarily abbreviated too, as 5,000 years of history have been compressed into fewer than 40 pages. One feature I like is that the port coverage is quite broad and included some (albeit very brief) coverage of some locations not addressed in RS (Tunisia, Sicily, Corsica).
In short this book paid for itself over and over again. The practical advice about transportation on land, how to best capitalize a short time in each city, restaurant tips, how to beat tourist lines, and mini guides about key places made this a great starting point for planning our time in each city and a great resource along the way. I can’t tell you how many times on our trip that my wife or I said “Well, Rick says…”Using this book alongside Rick Steves’ free audio guides (there’s an app for that, seriously, and they’re great), we had the information needed for a great trip. Even though it’s a 1200+ page tome, we threw it in our backpack most days or took quick notes or pictures on simpler days like in Mykonos.After chapters on general cruising advice, how to choose a cruise, etc., the book is laid out by country, and then each “chapter” focuses on a different cruise port. Each chapter lists out top sights, transportation from the boat, some guides for top attractions, recommendations for food, and potentially provides recommended contacts if you want to do hire a tour guide or do a group excursion. There’s even a bit at the end of each chapter about what to do if you miss your boat, but fortunately we never had to follow his advice there!We took a 12-night Norwegian cruise from Venice to Barcelona, so we used the following chapters: Barcelona, Provence (Toulon), Florence (Livorno), Rome (Civitavecchia), Naples, Venice, Athens (Piraeus), Mykonos, Istanbul, and Ephesus (Kusadasi). When you’re only hitting each city for a few hours (how do you see Rome in a day?) this book was invaluable in helping us create a realistic plan.
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