7th November 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides

For decades ‘Baltic’ has been a term best avoided, reserved for poorly heated church halls, wartime convoys and British summers, a word only just avoiding Iceland’s unhappy association with oven chips and frozen pizzas.  However, a region chilled by almost half a century of Soviet occupation has thawed.  Author Neil Taylor is an authority on the Baltic states and has observed the increasing pace of change since individual independent sovereignty was reasserted, noting ‘Who would have thought in 2000 that eight years later London would have a daily flight to Kaliningrad, and Liverpool a twice-weekly service to Kaunas?’

Bradt’s new Baltic Cities guide features Tallinn and Tartu in Estonia, Riga and Liepaja in Latvia, Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda in Lithuania together with Kaliningrad, capital of Russia’s vestigial Baltic toehold.
Along with his fellow contributors, Taylor displays such a profound wealth of knowledge that it would take a very brave or very foolish traveller to question the guide’s authority.  Many intriguing and potentially vexing questions are pre-empted.  Read the guide to discover: why you should go to prison in Liepaja on Mondays and buy coffee but not books in a Riga bookshop; how it’s possible to save a fortune by learning the Estonian word Päevapraad; why you shouldn’t buy tickets on a bus in Tallinn; and what it was that Simone de Beauvoir found existentially ‘très gaies’ in Tartu.  The guide’s cover suggests readers might use the book to ‘tailor’ their trips with confidence – perhaps the substitution of ‘Taylor’ would be more apposite.

Neil Taylor spent a lifetime as a tour operator, specialising since 1991 in Baltic countries.  He now concentrates on writing and divides his time between London and Tallinn.
 
For review copies contact Travel Media – 01830 540 440 or info@travel-media.co.uk
Title:            Baltic Cities                     Author:            Neil Taylor    
Publisher:    Bradt Travel Guides        Publication:    Out Now!
Price:           £14.99                              ISBN:              978 1 84162 247 7

Bradt Travel Guides
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