Zakynthos

Ideal for motorists and walkers. A general guide featuring Sunflower-style car tours (4, with maps) and walks (22, each with variations and 'mapped out' with 3D drawings); 50 pages of nature notes (all illustrated), 2 GPS-compatible touring/walking maps covering the island; plan of Zakynthos Town; downloadable GPS waypoints. Free online updates

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This guidebook is an ideal companion for motorists who want to tour Zakynthos by car, as well as those planning a holiday walking in Zakynthos. The book combines the best features of Sunflower's 'Landscapes' walking and car touring guides with all the detail you would expect in a hefty general guide. ---------------- Coverage includes: getting there and getting about; recommended accommodation and restaurants; practicalities A-Z; history; 22 main walks with many variations, all with both hand-drawn and GPS-compatible maps; fold-out GPS-compatible island map; copious notes on geology, flora and fauna (all illustrated).----------------- Although this is a general guide to the island, there is special emphasis on the countryside and the National Marine Park (where the author works for the protection of sea turtles), about which there is copious information. Even non-walkers will appreciate the walking sections: while the walk descriptions themselves are brief, each walk is followed by two facing pages focussing on the island's geology, habitats, agriculture, flora and wildlife - all illustrated.-
--------------- 4 car tours (with accompanying area maps); 22 walks, each with several variations and charmingly 'mapped out' with the author's own 3D drawings and showing GPS waypoints; 50 pages of nature notes (all illustrated), 2 GPS-compatible touring/walking maps covering the whole island; plan of Zakynthos Town; downloadable GPS waypoints and intermediate coordinates. Free online update service with specific route change information on the publisher's website, maintained daily.--------------- I searched everywhere. On the Internet, in libraries, in every bookstore that I could find, but although I found a lot of general guides on the Greek islands, they could only provide a small description of [Zakynthos] and all the common tourist attractions - water park, navaggio, carreta turtles, etc. Having the experience of Paris, when doing some walking tours in the old town was the best part of our trip, we searched for the same thing for Zakynthos, but weren't really finding anything. When this book opened its pages to us, it was all we are looking for, and even more.
I think one of the best things about the book is that the author, Gail Schofield, lives there and knows the surrounding and also that she was a zoology student, so has insights on all the plants and animals that live on the island. A book on culture and architecture is a marvel in large cities, but on islands like Zakynthos, where the main attraction is its savageness, you need to know everything about the environment, beaches and life in general. I skimmed the book preparing for our trip, and I found interesting the fact that it has hand-drawn maps of every walking tour, a thing that I haven't encountered that frequently in travel books. The illustrations of plants and animals are also high quality but the best part of the book is the folding map at the end which is by far the most complete map I have found to date. It has all the walking tours and car tours on it so you don't have to struggle planning them by yourself and if you go on the official site you can also download the GPS waypoints for the walking tours (that of course if you're not to lazy to enter them yourself from the end of the book). I highly recommend this book to anyone visiting Zakynthos. (RP, Amazon)