The Rough Guide to Belgium & Luxembourg Paperback – May 30, 2011

I traveled to Belgium in 1999 on a whim, for a long weekend in Antwerp, with about three days' notice. It was the best trip to Europe I've ever made. First, let me give you five (or six, or seven) really good reasons to go to Belgium and Luxembourg.1) Since they are somewhat off the beaten path (with the possible exception of Brugge (Bruges), in Flanders), they're cheap. You can get top quality accommodations, food, and beer for about half what you would expect to pay for similar quality in Paris, Cologne or Amsterdam.2) If well-preserved, but still functioning, medieval towns are your thing, consider this for a moment: Antwerp, Brugge, Ghent, Namur, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai. Any questions?3) The best beer on earth, period.4) Small enough to get anywhere within two hours, and entirely realistic to tour on a bicycle.5) More linguistic, cultural, artistic and geographic diversity crammed into a small space than any other country in the world. You get Dutch, French, German, and maybe even a little Spanish.6) A courteous and helpful service ethic. Belgians love tourists! And I love Belgium!7) Jacques Brel. If you don't know, make it a point to discover him while you're there.And, of course, there are also five good reasons to buy this guide rather than other guides.1) Essential historical, cultural and literary contexts that explain these small countries' somewhat confusing, multi-ethnic histories.2) Encyclopedic coverage of all the cities, towns and important natural sites, including insightful historic and practical information.3) Immediately up-to-date listings. Be sure to buy the most recent edition.4) More substance than style. Rough Guides are intentionally that way.5) A "not to miss" section that is well researched and looks beyond the obvious.With mighty Brugge right next door, I still think incredible Ghent gets the short end of the stick. Some of the writing is a bit stale in this regard. For me, the hoards of tourists in Brugge make the experience in Ghent that much more authentic. There's nothing like falling into a Ghent pub at about 4:30PM for a Duvel, and staying on until you forget where you are. It's awesome. The same goes for "so-beautiful-it-hurts" Tournai, in Hainaut.If you don't buy the book, go anyway. And if you go to Belgium and spend all your time in Brussels, shame on you:)

The review of the sights were good. There, however, was no warning that the streets can be dangerous. During the first hour we were there and checking into our room, in broad daylight (around 6 PM), the car window in our rent a car was broken, and our 2 suitcases were stolen. The police would not even come, and we had to walk to the nearest precinct to report it.

I traveled to Belgium (Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels) for a week in October of 2013 using the 5th edition. Aside from the cost of things going up, all of the information we relied on was still spot-on. The Rough Guide is one of the few publishers that dedicates an entire book to Belgium, and that alone makes this handy for a trip to the country. The introductory sections are nice for gaining a quick historical and cultural perspective in the area that you're in. As is the case with all Rough Guides, they do an excellent job of describing the main tourist attractions AND suggesting off-the-beaten-tourist-path sites. The maps are small which makes it slightly challenging to navigate the medieval layout of most cities. At the very least it can get you to the tourist information offices where complementary and detailed maps can be had. Whether you're interested in checking sights off a list or if you actually want to dive deeper to explore Belgium, this book is a fantastic resource.

This book had some helpful information and i did use it while I was on my trip, but the Kindle is not a great format for a guide book. I found myself missing the ability to flip through the book quickly and the Kindle book marks just don't cut it for quick access. Also, the pictures in the book are too small and the maps are useless due to size and resolution.I'll never buy a guide book on for a Kindle again.

True to the series, this is a well-written guide. We are traveling in Sept. 2012 and using this guide to plan the trip. So far, we have found it really useful.

Some errors and mix ups between different places. It gets you through the trip, but doesn't contain any "off the beaten path" stuff either. I try to avoid Lonely Planet since it's what everyone's doing, but this is pretty much the same.

I like these guidebooks a lot. And great to be able to download them on Kindle. Makes it so much easier.

I would have liked this book on my Kindle Fire, but the maps are unreadable. Zooming in on them does not help as they are too blurry to read. Terrible engineering and too bad as I would have liked to use this for my trip.

This is the first time that I have bought a Kindle edition of a Rough Guide or any other guidebook. It is convenient to carry of course and pretty useful for reference and good to read. The big downside on my Kindle Paperwhite is that the maps have too low a resolution to be very useful - for example the numbers showing restaurant locations on the maps are illegible on the Kindle and my laptop. However, using the Kindle app to read on my smartphone overcomes this, and I expect the same would be true for tablets or other touchscreen devices.As to its usefulness as a guidebook, I would give it five stars. As usual with Rough Guides, it has everything I need in a general guidebook, although for art and architecture I also like to have the Blue Guide if available. I find Rough Guides match my requirements better than Lonely Planets, but that must be largely a matter of what information you want and how easy you find the books to use.

I always go for Rough Guides wherever in the world I'm travelling and once again, it was a great choice. I was especially impressed with the section on Art Nouveau architecture in Brussels. The Contexts part is as informative and interesting as ever and the practical info is up to date (apart from prices, which seem to be going up all the time - but the guide book serves as a rough guide where the prices are concerned :)).All in all - recommended.

Handy to have if you are travelling around these countries. Good amount of detail but not too bulky. Biased towards non car travellers but generally has good recommendations for restaurants, attractions and accommodation.

My sister's lived in Brussels for about 15 years so I've visited quite a bit but went there on holiday recently with this guide book, and to a few other parts of Belgium and it came in very handy, lots of good recommendations and suggestions.

Bit vague in places, could have done with a bit more detail. Some surprising omissions re WWi sites etc.