The Cities Book: A Journey Through the Best Cities in the World

Lonely Planet Journey Books

by Lonely Planet (Manufactured By)

Cities represent civilization and human achievement: they are bubbling microcosms of virtues and vices, vanguards of technology and creative pursuits, incubators of traditions and melting pots of diversity. More than half the world's population now lives in cities, and for travelers they hold an endless fascination.

Every city has its own personality, in the form of its streets and buildings and in its human architecture. Taking our cue from the buzz on the street, we have captured the flavor of each city through the eyes of the typical citizen: hot conversation topics, urban myths, the best places to eat and rink and to seek out after dark. It's a tempting cocktail for the urban adventurer.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Coffee Table Books

422 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2006

About the author

OUR STORY
A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies and Lonely Planet was born. One hundred million guidebooks later, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading travel guide publisher with content to almost every destination on the planet.

Reviews

[ibtehaz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not worth a read. It's heavily backdated, both with information and images. Most of the descriptions of the cities are either from Wikipedia or other travel sites, I think. Besides, all of them follow the same copy-paste scenario. For example, Most developing and under-developed countries have similar kinds of weaknesses! Kinds like mugging, sex tourism, street urchin, poverty, racism! A lot of African and Latin American countries have sex tourism, surprisingly Thailand (Bangkok and other cities) are not in that category! Mugging, Petty theft, Street swindlers, Perse/Bag snatchers are the most common things in every city of this world. Actually, in this category, North Korea will be the safest city/country in this world. They are as common in developed countries, as they are common in developing and underdeveloped countries. Finally, what you call begging, street urchin, most developed countries have them. You just called them "homeless people"! One of the blatant, if not most useless weakness described is for the city Siena, Italy. The weakness is, they had a plague in the 13th century which killed 100,000 people. Apparently, you should think twice about visiting Siena. They had black plague seven fucking hundred years ago! Another one is, for Thimpu, harder to get, harder to stay! Why? Harder to get is because there are probably 20 pilots who are authorized to land a fucking aircraft in Paro International Airport. Why does it harder to stay? Is it too expensive? Not for me. Is it for altitude? Not for me. If normal people are living there in a city then it can host foreigners. There are few cities in this world where it's tough for foreigners. Last but not least, the date of birth of some of the cities are meaningless. For example, all of the Latin American cities were pre-occupied because Spaniards land their boats and slaughtered them in the name of God! The same goes for Greenland and Iceland. There were already people living in Greenland and Iceland. Nobody suddenly found a piece of unoccupied land. There were aboriginal people living there, European ships just stumbled upon those lands!

I bought this book because I was naive, browsing through a book store, didn't know any better! Unless you are in my position, (if anyone reading this far), do not buy this book. It does not have much to offer, other than filling up a place in your bookshelf!

So, for my personal note, here's the list of cities I do intend to visit someday -

1. Aleppo (1800 BC), Syria
2. Alexandria (332 BC), Egypt
3. Amman (3500 BC), Jordan
4. Athens (1400 BC), Greece
5. Baku (Bronze Age), Azerbaijan
6. Beirut (Stone Age), Lebanon
7. Cairo (150 AD), Egypt
8. Cuzco (12th Century), Peru
9. Damascus (3000 BC), Syria
10. Essaouira (1500s AD), Morocco
11. Fes (789 AD), Morocco
12. Istanbul (657 BC), Turkey
13. Jerusalem (2000 BC), Palestine
14. Kabul (Pre Historic!), Afganistan
15. Lhasa (700s AD), Tibet
16. Marrakesh (1062 AD), Morrocco
17. Nuuk (1728), Greenland
18. Quito (Pre Columbian), Ecuador
19. Reykjavik (874 AD), Iceland
20. Thimpu (1300s AD), Bhutan
21. Ulaanbaator (1690s AD), Mongolia
22. Ushuaia (1884 AD), Argentina (The Capital of Antarctica!)

[Baz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I put this book down 3 years ago when I left the UK and finally picked it up again when going back to collect some things.

The good thing about this book is being able to put it down and pick it up at any time. It's is a comprehensive (though rushed) surface blurb across a large number of very varied cities around the world. It gives just a slight taste of what each of these cities are like (best to have Google images & Wikipedia at your fingertips while reading this).

Now unfortunately some, if not many of the "journeys" seem to be geared towards an all American audience (who aren't the most well travelled in the world and often don't let the truth get in the way of a good story). Unfortunately this gearing leads to a bit of exaggeration and sometimes blatantly untrue points.
In my 20 years of living in Sydney, never have I heard it referred to as Sin City, Oslo is located about 20 metres above sea level, not 629, and the final comment on Warsaw is just blatantly ignorant and offensive. I would've assumed each city's descriptions would've been written by a resident or former resident, but it doesn't seem as such.

This is good if you would like a broad overview of some of the best cities in the world and I believe that have done a very good job at including some lesser know gems, unfortunately the truth can get a bit lost sometimes.

[Geoff Battle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cities Book offers a quick and insightful look at 200 of the world's most important cities, not just in terms of economic power, but those offering cultural and geographic interests. Each city is offered two large pages, one containing a plethora of interesting data/trivia (delete as applicable) and a page of signature lonely planet photos. The images, as one would expect from this publisher, are of the highest quality, although there are many photos which set a tone of the city, rather than offer an insight or explicit meaning. The Cities Book is no expansive volume on any one city - it is not a guide book, it's an easy to pick up, easy on the eyes coffee table book. It's an attempt to meet several needs although never hitting perfection in any area, however it's still a well put together piece of reference literature. A great book to learn from if you're not already a global traveller.

[Sudhir Pai · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Renault 4 taxis whine up and down the cobblestone hills, belching blue exhaust fumes over the crowds of pedestrians. In spring, purple jacaranda trees blaze into life, raining nectar onto the heads of skipping children and strolling couples. Terracota mansions are stacked on the hillsides turning gold under the setting sun. Beyond the city sprawl, paddy fields glint in the pale sunshine."

Antanarivo, Madagascar's capital, would rarely make the cut in any tourist's bucket-list. But when words paint a kind of picture as they do with the above paragraph, you'd at least be tempted to look it up online. And when they are also accompanied by Lonely Planet's famed photography, you'll definitely prepare a mental itinerary as hopeful travelers do.

LP's Cities Book paints such masterpieces of 200 cities, for this gallery of a guidebook. And like every journey you've undertaken, you are bound to be surprised by something that was never a part of your initial plans anyway. Don't be surprised if you're tempted to make new travel plans every time you turn the page.

[Amy Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful photography, gives some brief insights to cities around the globe. Did inspire me to consider visiting some places I otherwise wouldn’t think to :)