Macedonia: The Bradt Travel Guide

Indispensable, because it’s the only one out there, insufferable, because it’s so patchily written and permeated with questionable opinions, Macedonia: The Bradt Travel Guide bills itself as “the first-ever travel guide” to Macedonia. It is a book that, while definitely helpful in its wealth of logistical data, could have and should have been much, much better.

Seemingly penned in a rather hurried fashion to exploit a market gap, the slashdash nature of this guide to Macedonia will prove to be useful to those who venture to this often ignored part of the Balkans.This does not however mean the guide is very good - far from it , but its aroty does mean that it will indeed have some buyers, although this is a guide only at its most superficial level. More for well expensed International Organisation expats than down at heel backpackers, this cobbled together book barely touches the surface of a nation with a 10,000 years of history.Its essential - but only becasue there is nothing else around. maybe time for a Macedonian national to write a guide  & inject some of the passion that this British Expat seems to have missed out entirely. Sometimes the mere accumulation of facts and dessicated prose makes for a tiresome, if factually accurate read.