Guidebooks about Greece

We had good luck using both Lonely Planet and Frommer's.

Matt Barretts web site.

http://www.greecetravel.com/index.html

I agree with James - Matt's website is really all you need. Also, the Eyewitness guides don't offer much substance but they are visually spectacular. Most libraries carry them.

I always liked lonely planet as a 2nd to Ricks books but I also like this site for ferry schedules:
http://www.gtp.gr/

Hello Susan. I think the Lonely Planet book on Greece is sufficient as the only book for planning a trip to Greece. If you want to read more, the book "The Rough Guide to Greece" has lengthy descriptions of places in Greece, and the history, and it is beautifully written. I think the very best travel guide book on Greece is "GREECE" by Dana Facaros & Linda Theodorou (CADOGAN guides), Copyright 2003. The writing in it (descriptions of places, and history) is slightly more of a pleasure to read than the writing in "the Rough Guide to Greece". And the Cadogans guides book on Greece is a totally high quality book : the print is larger than the print in any of the other books on Greece, and the font style is plain and easy to read, the color of the pages is pleasant.

It all depends on what you're looking for. The Eyewitness Guides are VERY helpful in choosing which islands or mainland sites you want to visit most -- they have VERY good visuals, including helpful graphics of ancient sites. There are 2 guides (Islands & Mainland -- both include athens). Look in the Library; it doesn't matter if they have older editions--you don't look in these guides for hotel & restaurant tips anyway, and the sightseeing advice doesn't date that much.

For budgeteer logistics(transport,food, lodging), Lonely Planet used to be best. Alas LP went upmarket, with fewer bargains,less about lesser-known sites. It's particularly obvious about Crete. ALSO, city maps are now icky - not all streets named,grey thus impossible to phtocopy to carry in your pocket. An anonymnous LP editor told me they slashed text to add color photos for the upmarket crowd, and fired their best cartographers to save. I now find Rough Guide the Best, tho not visually impressive.

I appreciate Susan's reply, but I still recommend the Lonely Planet book "Greece" (6th Edition, Published March 2004). In it the chapter on the Cyclades islands, written by Des Hannigan, is very good. An other book that has good descriptions of the Greek islands is the Thomas Cook book on the Greek Islands. It does not need to be a recent edition of that book. The only good map of Athens, that has all the street names, is the big glossy map of Athens that is available at the tourist information office in Athens.

We had good luck with DK Eyewitness guides. We also printed out a copy of an essay/guide chapter draft on Athens Rick wrote that was posted on this website. It was dated, but still helpful. We also used this website for Athens:

athensguide.com

It is privately maintained and the guy who maintains it actually responds to emails.