1 comments about Open Road's Best Of Spain: Your Passport to the Perfect Trip!.

1. I'm planning a summer trip to Spain and bought this book along with several others. I like the approach of this guide. Since we'll only have a short time in several cities, the weekend and day plans are really helpful in planning a visit. The book is full of color photos and the city maps are very good (more detailed than Fodors or Frommers and clearer than the hand-drawn maps in the Rick Steves book). Overall, a very helpful overview of Spain. My only complaint is that the Balearic Islands aren't included.

No comments about Wallpaper City Guide: Honolulu ("Wallpaper*" City Guides) (Wallpaper City Guides (Phaidon Press)).

1 comments about Pilgrim's Road: A Journey to Santiago De Compostela.

1. It's been a while since I've read this book, but it still lingers. Selby, a middle-aged woman biking alone through the Pyrenees and across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, is full of wit, great stories, and endless energy (how she kept peddling after quaffing a bit of the free vino offered to pilgrims itself is amazing). It inspires an amateur bicyclist like me to pedal a few extra miles whenever I envision her journey. Even if you are not a bike enthusiast, you'll love her tales of the people she meets, the tiny towns she travels through, and the sense of triumph she feels upon reaching her destination

No comments about National Geographic Traveler España (National Geographic Traveler).

3 comments about The Rough Guide to Northern Spain Country Map (Rough Guide Country/Region Map).

1. Good map. Nice and detailed. Unfortunately the area I am most interested in is just south of the southern cut off. Don't buy this map if you are planning to visit Castille y Leon or Catalonia.



2. I had the Michelin maps of Spain/Portugal and the big Michelin map of Galicia and the next area..........but the Rough Guide map was my #1 choice by far for our 10 days in Galicia and the one I used as family navigator. The map has a plastic coating, so it won't break as with paper maps when you try to fold it over into the section that you need.
   
   The symbol for scenic overlooks or miradors was great........I managed to get our family to a bunch of obscure but beautiful sites, some of them on those narrow "white roads."
   
   I found the printing and colors much easier to follow than the Michelin maps.
   
   One caution about all the maps other than the one that we got from the Galician tourist bureau........the road numbers on the maps do not always match the road numbers on the roads!



3. The map is easy to ready with great information, but it has already tore at one of the crease lines...

2 comments about A Load of Bull: An Englishman's Adventures in Madrid.

1. A darn good read that switches from funny to touching and back to banana-skins-at-dawn funny again. Parfitt's honesty gives the book the ability to mix the enormous range of human experience in Madrid and combine details of an amazing career.
   
   The writing itself is pitched well: readable, clear and elegant. I chewed through the opus espanicus in a couple of days.
   
   The only problem with 'A Load Of Bull' is I don't see how there can be a sequel - unless Parfitt has more untold tales up the sleeve of his tweed jacket?



2. I have visited Madrid twice as a tourist and I have few personal funny stories struggling with the Spanish language. But I have never close to the difficulties the author, Tim Parfitt had when he was living and working in Madrid. I found myself laughing reading each chapter, following the author's life story. His troubles trying to fit in with the Madrilenos, their eating habits and his hilarious insights of the Spanish culture.
   
   I have to add, I really enjoyed how the book ended. Instead of Tom Parfitt lives happy ever after, which he does, the author has a surprising and funny ending.
   
   Bill

1 comments about Mediterranean Handbook: Ferry Routes, Islands and Ports.

1. I found this book quite by luck, hoping the title would truly indicate its contents. I have been wanting to plan a trip of travel across the Mediterranean from port to port, and this book is a splendid start for such a venture. Also, it is sufficiently rigorous and detailed-- probably because the author is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.

1 comments about Time Out Shortlist Barcelona 2008 (Time Out Shortlist).

1. The Shortlist series are merely a physically smaller, more concise, version of the incredibly useful and informative TimeOut series. It has many of the same references for lodging, bars/clubs, getting around and the like just in a more truncated package. I would not buy both, as most listings are the same word-for-word.
   
   I would make the assessment of how much time you have in a particular city and get the short version based on a more limited amount of time. As with all Shortlists, it has key info on addresses, websites, whether credit cards are allowed, hours of operation, and costs. I would like to see better and easier to follow maps, however.
   
   TimeOut travel guides are still the most comprehensive, helpful, colorful and informative guides out there. They FAR surpass Fodors, Frommers, Lonely Planet, Berlitz, or Wallpaper guides.
   
   If you find yourself making a quick trip through an unexpected city, get a Shortlist. If you are planning in advance and want a single guide that can assist your entire trip, get a regular TimeOut.

2 comments about Art/Shop/Eat Barcelona.

1. This is a great book ! I have been to barcelona several times, but thanks to this guide I've been able to discover new things. If you're into art and culture, this is the barcelona's guide you'll need.



2. Was no one paying attention? The editor for this book should be fired. With the format of detailing the artistic/architectural sites of interest, with reviews of stores and restaurants/eateries, this was a specialist type travel book that had potential. But where it fails horrible is in it's usability: There is no way to FIND the places the book is reviewing. When the book tells you there is a great restaurant on such-and-such a street, you can't find the street or the location. There are a few pages of maps in the back, but no street index, no little numbers cross referencing locations, nothing. Very frustrating. Most of the information about the museums or cultural sights can be found in other books. You will need a different book or map with street index to find the places reviewed.
   The book is compact and easy to carry. This is a very good reference for anyone interested in vegetarian restaurants or commercial art galleries, although you won't be able to find them using this book.
   Since this is the first edition one hopes that in the next edition these severe problems are corrected. .

1 comments about Pocket Menu Reader Portugal (Langenscheidt's Pocket Menu Reader).

1. This book was useful, but could have been much more useful. The problem is that it tries to be much more than it should be. What I would like, is to be able to go into a Portuguese restaurant, get a menu in Portuguese, and be able to quickly look up words and phrases so that I can order something that I want. But of this book's 191 pages, only 25 are the Portuguese to English dictionary. Another 34 pages are an English to Portuguese dictionary.
   
   So what is the rest of the book? Well, there is a recipe section. There is a large section about regional dishes. There is general information on Portuguese and Brazilian food (things like types of wine, etc.). And there is a 47 page section of general phrases plus grammer. Even that section could be better: it had phrases like "Is there any show suitable for children?", yet I couldn't find the phrase for "Thank you."
   
   I really wish this book had stuck to what it claimed to be, a "Menu Reader." If I had wanted a recipe book, I would have bought one! There were too many times that I couldn't find the items on a menu in the dictionary. And I didn't want to spend 10 minutes looking through all the lists of regional dishes, seeing if I could find items that were on the menu.
   
   So, should you buy this book? Well, maybe. Two big pluses are that it is cheap, and it really is pocket-sized. It's just too bad, because it could have been so much more useful than it is.