Frommer's? Europe 2000

The inside flap of the front cover depicts a map of the Paris Metro, the inside flap of the back cover provides metric conversions, and nestled inside Frommer's 2000 Europe is a full-size fold-out color map with Eurail routes and ferries. And then there's the book itself, a superbly insightful, concise, and informative guide that packs in all the travel, lodging, eating, and sightseeing particulars it can without burdening your pack with a tome too cumbersome to pack. Frommer's has been covering Europe for a long time, which means they're fine-tuning and updating, not scrambling for raw data. There are 75 maps scattered throughout this guide, as well as phone numbers, addresses, prices, hours, directions, historic notes, and useful tips for 18 European countries--plus an Online Travel Directory compiled by Michael Shapiro to assist you in Internet planning. Frommer's updates yearly, so the details are as fresh as press time allows, the reviews are candid rather than canned, and the breadth and depth of information is impressive, given how many towns and cities there are to cover and still fit in one portable edition. --Stephanie Gold