5 comments about Istanbul: The Imperial City.

1. In october of this year i'll be visiting Istanbul so i decided to read this book to increase my knowledge of this city and i wasnt dissapointed. I love the authors account of Istanbul since it's beginning.I ilke the way he relates how all the major buildings and monuments in Istanbul came to be and its relation with the person who build them and its relation to the city.I liked the last section which summarises the major monuments and a little bit of it's history.I recommend this book to anyone traveling to Turkey



2. A little too detailed for what I was after, but an excellent history of this wonderful city.



3. Having lived in Istanbul for 4 years, I was more interested in finding out more about the Byzantium history since the rest of
   it (post 1453); I have studied immensely through out my school years. Unfortunately, Freely did not exceed or even meet my expectations, the book was more like a tourist guide and from what I gather from the reviews, most of the people who gave it a good rating are foreigners who went to Istanbul for vacation and sightseeing..
   
   The historical facts consist mostly of some dates and mere numbers regarding population, mosques and some prominent sultans. There was no satisfactory story telling about the life outside the palace in which it is claimed that 26 different ethnicities were living side by side. Commoners, gypsies, peasants, jugglers, tumblers, thieves, dwarves, horses, elephants were some of the inhabitants that gave Istanbul her true color.
   
   As in several books written with a similar approach, the "harem" in the Topkapi Palace is a whole chapter by itself, yet, the entire chapter is devoted to totally irrelevant history of such and such sultan died and the son became the new sultan and then he was replaced by the next one and so on...
   
   The only plus in this book are the sketches of some arthictectural marvels in the last pages which you do not have to buy the book to be fascinated!



4. Prof. Freely has walked the streets of Istanbul a lot more than many of the locals and has a good grasp of the cultural and historical significance of this great city.
   
   I was lucky enough to be his student, and then assistant, at Bogazici University along the Bosphorous, old Robert Academy, where he taught Physics for many years. He has an excellent eye for catching that little strange detail that many Istanbullians take for granted but what may be a direct link to either the Ottoman Imperial past or all the way back to Romans.
   
   They did not call themselves Byzant by the way, and Ottomans did not call them Byzantians either. Both knew they were Romans, Eastern Roman to be exact. Numerous European rulers over the centuries have tried to assume the "Roman Emperor" title and dreamt of re-creating the glory of the Roman Empire, so they have usually found it hard to acknowledge the true heritage of Constantinople.
   
   This is a little more than just a street guide, but not exactly a historical treatise either. Thank you Prof. Freely.



5. This is being used a text for the History of Turkey in a local junior college. it is highly prized a source.

No comments about Paris Chic & Trendy: Designers' Studios, Hip Boutiques, Vintage Shops.

5 comments about Vienna (City Guide).

1. The fancy of going to Vienna next summer crossed my mind more than once so I decided to pick this up just to get some more information on the City of Music. It's a very concise book that can be easily toted around in a bag or pocket, which I immediately liked because should I go I would want to keep it on hand. I liked the layout for places to stay, going from campgrounds to hostels, to the hotels, going from one star to five. It has a great listing for restaurants and has the city pretty much covered in respects to places to visit and a calendar of events, which makes planning a trip a lot easier. The history was a nice added bonus for someone not knowing about the city, as well as historical people that spent time/grew up in Vienna (ie: Mozart). Colour photos and things such as political mindset, attitude towards children, the legal system are nice touches as well. However, take the prices with a grain of salt, especially with the new introduction of the Euro.



2. I've long been a Lonely Planet fan, never thinking twice about buying the appropriate Lonely Planet book whenever I travel. However, the new format and emphasis of the LP guides has made me re-think my commitment.
   
   Specifically, the "Fact for the Visitor" section has been greatly reduced, and moved under the confusingly titled "Directory" section. Unfortunately, this is difficult to locate because the Table of Contents has been bowdlerized from the former detailed breakdown into a simple section listing. If you want to find a specific piece of information, you now have to guess which section it might be hiding in (as in "Directory" -- which is almost nothing like a directory), then flip the to beginning of that section for the more detailed contents.
   
   The new, less coherent, structure is frustrating enough, but when you get each section, you find it very hard to read. One of the first things that you learn about graphic design and publishing is that sans serif typefaces are difficult to read for long passages and should only be used sparingly. The new guides have turned this on its head, and now very light sans serif faces are used almost everywhere (contrast this with earlier editions where sans serif is only used for headings). I find it difficult to read for more than a few paragraphs, which is very annoying.
   
   Being able to locate, and read the information are the two most fundamental things a guidebook needs to have, and these new editions really fail.
   
   Which raises the biggest problem of all -- LP seems to be changing its emphasis from a guide which provided lots of useful information to the budget traveler as well as the higher end independent traveler. The new guide really de-emphasizes the budget traveler, in favor of being a generic, middle of the road guide. Which, from someone who looks to get the most from his travel dollar, is extremely disappointing. In contrast with my second edition copy of this guide, the fourth edition lists half as many budget accommodations, and twice as many mid-range to expensive ones.
   
   On the plus side, the maps *finally* include a grid, making it much easier to find locations on them.
   
   On the whole though, LP has taken the guides I've loved for years, and made them much less valuable to me. In the future, I'll be shopping around for guides, instead of knowing that I can trust LP without a second thought.



3. I packed two guidebooks for my trip to Vienna: this one, and an ancient Michelin Green Guide to Austria that devoted about 20 pages to Vienna. I found the latter more useful, even though much of the information was frozen in a long-forgotten 1978.
   
   It's difficult to look up specific information in this guide, and, once found, it's sometimes misleading. "The regal rooms of Schloss Schonbrunn are in a league of their own in Vienna - the Kaiser apartments of the Hofburg hardly come close." Perhaps. But the Schonbrunn was so packed with tour groups that I ran through the forty rooms that are open for viewing as quickly as possible just to get out of the place. By contrast, a visit to the Hofburg included a moving exhibit on the wife of the emperor Franz Joseph; for me, this humanized the rooms and added a depth that the mere viewing of endless amounts of gold leaf could not.
   
   The typeface of this book is too small and faint, and the maps are unreadable. A reference for the Albertina is given as `Map pp.240-3.' Turning to page 240, I found tiny dots with tiny numbers going up to 351, but no dot with a 3. After much searching of page 240, I found the 3 on an inset map on page 241. This is inexcusable in a guidebook.
   
   Vienna is too wonderful to entrust to this guide. Friends who carried the Eyewitness Travel Guide to Vienna at least had a book that was readable.



4. A deeply disappointing, if not awful, guidebook to Vienna. I have purchased dozens of Lonely Planet guidebooks, and have had universally good experiences with the series until purchasing Lonely Planet Vienna. The guidebook was filled with inaccuracies, including wrong addresses, grossly mistaken opening hours, and misleading maps. The supposed insider recommendations often led to very touristy restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues. Do yourself a favor and buy a guidebook from another series; this one will certainly lead you astray.



5. Very helpful. I had a day to spend in Vienna and I could quickly find all the sites I needed/wanted to go, plus discover new ones.

2 comments about Italy, A Love Story: Women Write About the Italian Experience.

1. The editor of this book deserves a lot of credit. She has brought together some wonderful authors here. These are not your standard stories of wealthy women who bought villas in Italy. Nor are they typical stories about the quaintness of the Italian "natives". These are everyday women living and traveling in Italy for diverse reasons. Their stories ring true and honest, and they are, at times, heart-wrenching. The writing is superb. I loved leaving this book by my bedside and reading one story each evening. If you love Italy or dream of visiting Italy, you will love this book.



2. I am enjoying the book . It is a perfect read after having returned from a month in Italy. I am able to visualize Matera, Puglia, Otranto, and many other places. I can see myself in many of the experiences contained in the book. Enjoy, enjoy! Wow! I think I can contribute to Cusumano's next book about Italy!

1 comments about Fodor's Barcelona, 2nd Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides).

1. loved this book during my trip! It has great walking tours that help you navigate the confusing (and sometimes not very well-marked) streets and fantastic coverage of everything Gaudi. It also had excellent suggestions for tapas places that were delicious. I highly recommend this book for your travels to Barcelona.

2 comments about Wallpaper City Guide: Paris (Wallpaper City Guide Paris).

1. Wallpaper Magazine --- the bible of all that is cutting edge in international design/fashion/travel/interiors --- is celebrating its 10th birthday.
   
   And how better to show off its grown-up status --- at ten, a magazine is old enough to drink and smoke and Lord knows what else --- than by rolling out a slew of travel guides that are exactly as hip as the magazine?
   
   These make no effort to be complete. They're 100+ pages. Paperback. Smallish: 6" by 4". With photos that sometimes fill two pages.
   
   In other words, these are not travel guides for first-time travelers. (You want a primer --- start with a guide like Fodor's.) These books are a whole other game. Indeed, they're so of the moment that they probably need to be junked and massively revised every year or two --- the cutting edge has a way of cutting the throats of hip restaurants and shops. And the thing about architecture is that there's always more of it, and the new stuff is (or so the media would have it) just a bit more exciting than last year's.
   
   To judge these guides, I selected a city I know well (Paris) and the city that's been home for most of my life (New York). Talk about surprising! No, make that mind-blowing.
   
   Wallpaper's Paris Guide doesn't fall for the lie that the city never changes. It sees "constant, if sometimes, gentle, upheaval." Yes --- if you are 25 years old and have spent quantity time haunting the chic arrondissements. If, like me, you have a family and plunk yourself down in the 6th or 7th, this guide is a revelation.
   
   I loved the cheek of this praise of the Marais: "These streets...are as near as Paris gets to signs of life on a Sunday." I was happily surprised to learn that Sacre-Coeur was "built as a monument to failure" (in the Franco-Prussian War). But after that...everything was new. I was especially agog at the hotels --- the photos are so exquisite they're hotel-porn. Who could afford these rooms? Why did I know so few of them?
   
   For that matter, I'd heard of half the restaurants, none of the clubs, few of the buildings. Shopping? Spas? Getaways? Zip. Zip. Zip. It got so that I frowned when I came across a recommendation for a known entity --- like Joel Robuchon's Atelier. Clearly, Joel's super-expensive, no-reservations eatery must be on the way out.
   
   Wallpaper's New York Guide was equally full of surprises. I live uptown --- clearly, everything worth seeing or doing is way downtown. (Though it was bracing to see the Paris Theatre, at 5th Avenue and 58th Street, listed as the city's best art-movie cinema.) I've never heard of the beautiful Matsuri Restaurant (in the Maritime Hotel), or Thor, or Public, or Odea, or En, or Morimoto. And that's just the tip of my iceberg of ignorance.
   
   But here's the thing: Nowhere in these guides do I get the feeling that the writer is sneering at me. Or, that if I go to these places, the proprietors will look at my preppy blazer and graying hair and frantically look for a velvet rope to bar me. The exclusionary factor here is money --- bargains are not a Wallpaper priority.
   
   But, hey, you're on a vacation. A little splurge won't kill you. And if you cherry-pick the suggestions in these guides, you're sure to have an adventure you can share with the folks back home. But you'll have to excuse me now --- I'm off to visit New York



2. These include a couple of poorly reproduced photos and tiny articles drawn from the magazine, obviously nobody was sent there seperately to do anymore research or come up with any useful information. These are vapid and terrible.
   
   Save your money and get a real guide book, the same places will be included but you might learn something.

5 comments about The Innocents Abroad (Dover Value Editions).

1. 
   Between June and November 1867, Mark Twain was a participant in an excursion tour of the Mediterranean area of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This book is basically an account of that trip, based on letters he had written for (mainly) the "San Francisco Alta California" during the trip (the paper thus paid for the trip). It's an interesting blend of fact and fiction.
   
   Sailing aboard the "Quaker City" steamship, the journey begins in New York. First stop is the Azores and then Gibraltar, where Twain hears the legend of the Queen's Chair. A short side trip to Tangier gives him his first exotic tastes - right out of the Arabian Nights. The Fourth of July finds him at Marseilles, from which he travels by train to Paris (where he gets a painful shave in addition to visiting the Louvre, Notre Dame, and a theatre that has cancan dancers). He spends a day at Versailles before returning to Marseilles.
   
   The ship is now off to Italy, where Twain spends the next month visiting Genoa, Milan (he tours the cathedral and its sculptures and La Scala), Lake Como, Venice (a big disappointment), Florence, Rome (where he spends a lot of time viewing the Vatican), and finally Naples (which he thought filthy). Greece was their next stop, then Constantinople, where he comments on the slave market there. They sail to Odessa, which really offers no sightseeing opportunities, a welcome respite after Italy.
   
   Traveling then to Asia he visits Smyrna and Ephesus, and then moves on to the Holy Land. In Damascus Twain becomes ill for a day, but continues on to Palestine and the Sea of Galilee (another disappointment). At Nazareth he imagines it hasn't changed since the time of Jesus. Jerusalem seems a very small city to him; it is here that Twain weeps at the grave of Adam, a "blood relation." A week or so later he continues to Jaffa overland where he meets the "Quaker City" and sails to Egypt. He goes to the pyramids and the sphynx, which impresses him greatly. The ship sails from Alexandria for home in early October, making a few stops along the way (one lengthy one in Spain, which Twain found delightful). They stop at Bermuda (most enjoyable to Twain) and land in New York in mid-November.
   
   Twain has a keen traveler's eye, though his humor would sharpen with time. Only his second book after the Jumping Frog sketches, he hadn't yet mastered the sharp satirical observations that graced later books (ROUGHING IT, for example, which is quite a bit funnier). But certain "themes" were already forming - his poking fun at religion, for instance: he observes that the relic of Jesus' Crown of Thorns at the cathedral in Milan is not as handsome as the one at Notre Dame. When he compares things seen on his trip with things back in America (something he doesn't do enough) he can be humorous: he compares the canals of Venice with a flooded river town along the Mississippi - neither which is very appealing in his view. He is always interesting, however, and the book is a joy to read.



2. 
   As the United States was recovering from the devastating effects of the Civil War, a group of "pilgrims" (as Twain calls them) boarded a steamer for an extended five month picnic to Europe and the Holy Land. His passage was paid, about $1250, by a newspaper in California in return for a series of what turned out to be 50 letters documenting this tourist experience. In the process, he got a lot of mileage out of caricaturizing his inner circle amongst the some 65 pilgrims, making them famous...and the book made from the letters made him famous.
   
   Although his humor and irony is not as concentrated as that in "Huckleberry Finn" and later books, the suggestion of great literature is present. "Innocents" is rampant with characteristic understatement. In a day before political correctness, he notes, "The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant...in Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."
   
   In Tiberius, he noted that the women wore their coins of dowry on their headdresses: "Most of these maidens were not wealthy, but some have been kindly dealt with by fortune. I saw heiresses there, worth, in their own right, - worth, well, I suppose I might venture to say as much as nine dollars and a half. But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these, she naturally puts on airs."
   
   He does not sugar-coat his view of the middle east and holy land - a thinly populated barren wasteland whose religion handicapped them then as now. During a trip to Jordan over roads supposedly subject to raids by roving Bedouins, he wrote, "I think we must all have determined upon the same line of tactics, for it did seem as if we never would get to Jerico. I had a notoriously slow horse; but somehow I could not keep him in the rear to save my neck. He was forever turning up in the lead. In such cases I trembled a little, and got down to fix my saddle. But it was not of any use. The others all got down to fix their saddles, too. I never saw such a time with saddles. It was the first time any of them had got out of order in three weeks, and now they had all broken down at once. I tried walking for exercise - I had not had enough in Jerusalem, searching for holy places. But it was a failure. The whole mob were suffering for exercise, and it was not fifteen minutes till they were all on foot, and I had the lead again...We were moping along down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards, two gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols, and daggers on board, were loafing ahead. 'Bedouins!' Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. My first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any Bedouins had approached us then from that point of the compass, they would have paid dearly for their rashness."
   
   Delightful in every respect, this is still a chronicle of travel, and readers who have experienced any of the myriad of locations will be more consistently entertained. Astute readers may observe evidence of the history and experiences gained on this trip used frequently in Twain's subsequent writings.
   
   His more acclaimed "Roughing It" is a duplication of his travelogue efforts, but in the more familiar United States. Interesting (in "Innocents") is his positive view of stage coach travel in the US in comparison to train travel by steam engine in Europe. Can you imagine in today's world enjoying a thousand-mile trip over rut-filled excuses for roads behind a team of horses?
   
   Anyway, this is a great intro to the early Mark Twain - Five well-deserved stars!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



3. It was with delight that I picked up Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. Above all other other authors, it was probably Twain that directed me towards my degree (minor though it is) in English. I also love to travel and see new cultures and places. Because of this I couldn't have imagined a better author than Twain to accompany on a romp through Europe and the Middle East. The first couple of pages alone were entertaining, so I plunged into it with excitement. What I found is that not even Mark Twain can avoid the eventual tediousness that comes with travel memoirs, someone rattling on and on about this place or that place, the art they saw or the cities which are apparently unique but all seem the same. However, if there is anyone you would rather be with throughout all that monotony, it is the master of satire himself. Every time I thought I was descending into the point of no return boredom, Twain threw out some anectdote or image or some completely irrelevent story that made me laugh out loud. Several times I laughed pretty hard, other times I simply smiled, but no matter what, Twain rescued me from not wanting to finish the tour. Some of my favorite moments were the constant naming of all guides as "Ferguson," no matter what their actual name or nationality, the never-ending quest for a good shave from foreign barbers, or reflections on the random, non-sensical thoughts of the passenger nicknamed "the Oracle." By the end, I was interested not only to see parts of Europe, but from the point of view of a very fresh, post-Civil War American. Twain's encounter with the Russian Czar is almost too good to be true, and his insights in the Holy Land are both funny and thoughtful. Something that I had never noticed in his previous writings, either because of my own negligence or his careful writing, was the power of Twain's description. It is with the most passing ease that he masterfully paints a picture of what he is seeing. My brother tells me that Mr. Twain also wrote a travel narrative on a trip around the equator. Europe was fun enough that I don't see a reason to not join him all the way around the world. I'll keep you posted.



4. The book is nothing more than the arrogance of American pilgrims or travelers looking and sounding superior to "foreigners." I could not get through it and I don't regret it.



5. This book is NOT an easy read, but it does have its rewards.
   
   "The Innocents Abroad" is a long and meandering travelogue recounting Twain's 1867 trip to Europe and the Middle East aboard a chartered steamship of American tourists. Twain is observant, droll and amusing, but he also bogs the narrative down with numerous tedious tangents and obscure literary and bibilical references.
   
   It is interesting to see the world of 1867 through Twain's eyes and to find that many of the annoyances of travel then are familiar today -- pushy vendors, long-winded guides, aggressive beggars. But it's also fascinating to see what's different -- the difficulty of finding soap in Europe, for example, or the need to travel partly by carriage, horse and donkey.
   
   A couple of scenes were especially enjoyable. In Greece, the Americans were forbidden to land. Desperate to see the Parthenon and the Acropolis, Twain and others snuck off the ship in the middle of night, crept through city streets and then bribed guards to see the landmarks. Later, at Yalta on the Black Sea, the travelers remarkably got to meet the emperor of Russia simply because they were Americans, and were treated as grand representatives of their country.
   
   While Twain makes it clear that he is a Bible-reading man, he despises those who are excessively pious or who use religion arrogantly. Italy, he says, has built magnificent churches while "starving half her citizens to accomplish it. She is today one vast museum of magnificance and misery." In the Middle East, he mocks those who operate questionably "holy" sites to lure in tourists.
   
   It is hard to imagine any travel writer as blunt as Twain. He describes the Azores as "eminently Portuguese -- that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy." He says Moorish women have "atrocious ugliness."
   
   The most disturbing element of the book is Twain's bigotry toward Muslims. He calls the Muslim turks "by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious." He calls the residents of Damascus the "ugliest, wickedest-looking villains we have seen." He unapologetically says Muslims will never be the equal of Christians until they learn to repent.
   
   This is a long book (my edition was 495 pages of rather dense type), but I found you don't have to read it straight through. Since there are few continuing characters, you can put it down and pick up later with little loss. To avoid getting bogged down, I suggest you skip over Twain's numerous digressions and instead skip ahead to the parts where he is actually traveling or personally engaged in an activitiy.

5 comments about German in 10 Minutes a Day® (10 Minutes a Day Series).

1. After many books on Italian, French, Spanish, I finally found a learning guide that makes sense. Chapter 1: the alphabet. Chapter 2: key question words (who, what, where, when, why, how, how much). Chapter 3: Odds 'n ends (the words for "the" and "a"). And so on. All words are shown phonetically, as well as how they are spelled in the native German. Tear-out sheets for reviewing on the go. Peel-off stickers to put around the house. This one seems to have it all.



2. The author seems to have her heart in the right place and the book is well organized, but I really doubt anyone will learn more than number, colors, or other such items.
   
   I've been working through a number of German books in my middle(ish) aged quest to be bilingual so I'm not a total beginner. I wanted an exercise book to do over lunch and I found this book on sale (<$5). I would say I got about that amount of knowledge out of it.
   
   The matching, fill in the blanks, and crossword puzzles were good, but so much is left out that you can't really understand any of what you are doing, you are just memorizing. For example, the author has you conjugate the verb 'sprechen' but never mentions it is an irregular verb that changes to 'du sprichst'. Later, the sentence structure where a second verb is unconjugated and moved to the end of the sentence is used by the author, but is never mentioned to the reader.
   
   It was a good way to keep my head in German, but I can't say I got very much from the book.



3. I'm using this book to teach a group of senior citicens to speak and understand basic level German. The pictures are great and the exercises are very helpful. The book focuses on learning words and phrases in an organized manner and does not frighten learners with grammar and sentence structure. I think an audio CD would go well with this, just so the audience would have a way to practice at home, or while traveling. Don't let the title mislead you...it takes more than 10 minutes to learn...practicing 10 minutes several times a day will do the trick. With language it's all about repetition.



4. After purchasing this book I took a college course - guess what, this book was the curriculum. Excellent book with lots of pictures and many engaging exercises.



5. I found myself somewhat overwhelmed at my local bookstore by the number of books they had for learning German, so I decided to go with the easiest, most user friendly book they had, and picked up this one. I am very happy I did. I have really learned quite a bit from this book and have enjoyed doing it. This book has taught me enough, to know that I can in fact learn German, and has encouraged me to contiue onto more in depth books. Even though I agree, a CD would have made this so much better, the pronuciation guides are really excellent. The sticky labels are really a great way to not only learn a word, but remember it. If you're not sure you want to learn a language (or if you have to learn one and quickly) this is a really great book to start off with. Granted I spent more than 10 minutes a day on it, but only because I enjoyed learning from this book.

2 comments about Iceland (Bradt Travel Guide).

1. Andrew Evans clearly knows his stuff. His guide to Iceland is at the same time comprehensive and concise, encyclopedic and to-the-point. He provides both the intrepid backpacker and the urbane traveler with everything they'll need to know about how to get the most out of a visit to this exotic little island, without going broke, getting lost, freezing or getting scalded. His tips and insights are quirkily funny, preternaturally useful and spot-on in accuracy.
   Leave the "Lonely Planet" behind--this book is all you'll need, regardless of whether you're doing a 2-night stopover on your way to Europe, or a summer-long, whole-island trek.



2. An excellent, chock-full guide written by someone who clearly spent a good deal of time not only exploring Iceland, but also getting to know the country, its history, and its people. The book's insights and recommendations were spot-on and culturally-attuned. I especially liked the suggestions of itineraries for different length visits (pp. 68-69). My friend and I went for a long weekend -- our goal was plenty of geothermal soaking, nature, and good local eats. Mission accomplished!

3 comments about Time Out Madrid (Time Out Guides).

1. If you are going to Madrid there are two books minimum you must read before hand and take with you: Eyewitness Guide Madrid, and this Time Out Guide. I have been to Madrid several times and always take the most current version of the Time Out with me.
   To understand why the books are so good, you need to know that Madrid has the greatest number of bars and restaurants per capita of any city in the world. In Spain, the people of Madrid are given the nickname gatos, which means cats, because they stay up all night. They go to work at 8am, leave at noon, go home and sleep after the big meal of the day, return to work at 5pm, work until 9, leave work and go to tapas bars, where they have one drink and a snack, move to the next. Keep moving until around 11pm, when they stop for dinner, then it is off to a disco club, flamenco club, or a bar. But the same m.o.: in for a half hour or hour, then move on again. At 4:30 am on the weekends there are traffic jams because the streets are so busy. And I saw only one person who was drunk, that person undoubtable a tourist. The locals have fun, but behave themselves.
   
   This is why the Time Out guide is so valuable. Even if you dont want to stay up until 4 am, the Time Out guide assumes that just as important as the monuments and art musems, the lifestyle is a 'must do' part of your stay. The book has 109 pages devoted to details on cafes, bars, arts and enteratinment. There is another 22 pages just on shopping; the 18 pages of hotel listings are detailed and a good source of information. The first 34 pages do a solid job of covering history, architecture, and modern Madird; 44 well done pages on sightseeing sights. Although the Eyewitness Guides usually win the best map award, the maps in this guide I think are acutally a little better. Slightly larger and they include the bus routes.
   
   Two of my favorite places I found by reading this book, both on the same street 4 doors apart. The Time Out guide says "CARDAMOMO, open 9pm-4am daily. If you've got any interest in flamenco or salsa, this is an essential stop. The dancing varies from eye-catchingly sensual to reassuringly clumsy. No one here gives fig about such niceties, and the gitano flavour ensures the music can't be resisted for long."
   
   The other is "EL BURLADERO open 3 to 3:30am daily. A packed two-storey locale off Plaza Santa Anna that's regularly full of copupes swinging each other round to flamenco, shouting Ole, and clapping. On the upper floor its calmer and a bit more space."
   
   The descriptions are accurate, you wont find them in the other books. You would miss alot if you didn't have this book on your trip. When you go to Madrid, use the jet lag to your advantage; sleep in the middle of the day and early evening, get up at 10, go out for dinner, wander the Plaza Santa Ana area, catch a flamenco show, and see if Madrid isn't one of your all time favorite cities.



2. After living in Madrid for six months, I can honestly say this is the best guide that we found for recommendations on local bars, cafes, restaurants, shopping, nightlife, and tourist attractions. For people with a limited amount of time in the city it might be best to go with a tourism-focused guide like Rick Steves which gives you specific itinerary recommendations, but Time Out would still be a good secondary guide for those folks. It contains extensive information on all of the usual and unusual tourist sights, including up-to-date pricing and hours, as well as an abundance of listings of bars, restaurants, and cafes that contain more locals than tourists (which I prefer). I know I'm sounding like an ad for Time Out, but this was the first time I'd used one of their guides and I was impressed. It ended up being the one we turned to again and again, when we needed a recommendation but wanted something that would feel truly "Spanish" (and not created for tourists). We also found their day-trip info for the surrounding towns very helpful. I couldn't more highly recommend this guide.



3. The basics are here: what's where, hotels, restaurants, museums, and the rest. If there were no other guides to Madrid, this would probably be OK. If you're a twenty-something party animal, it's probably quite good. This has a strong emphasis on night life, music, and sport. It points out the places that are friendly to same-sex social life as well as the more traditional venues. If you're in the target demographic, you'll probably like this a lot better than I do. I have just a little time away from a business trip to enjoy the city, and I'm looking for a different side of the city.
   
   Irrespective of the book's intended readership, a few things about it annoy me. On the positive side, it's attractively illustrated. Too often, though, an enticing picture has no caption and offers no way to find out more. Worse, although p.7 assures us that "no establishment has been included because it advertised in any of our publications," an awful lot of pages look just like advertisements to me, the kind that you'd see bought and paid for in travel magazines. The most annoying of the ads, though, are the many for other "Time Out" guides and products.
   
   So, decide what you want and what you don't want in a travel guide. If you differ from me in both areas, this guide might work for you. In that case: great! It's just not for me.
   
   //wiredweird