5 comments about Road Of Stars To Santiago.

1. This is a great book and is a very useful guide to the pilgrimage. It is hard to find, and Amazon is doing a great service in trying to provide it for pilgrims. However extracts from the book with very useful information can be found at the Telegraph Online London web site in the TRAVEL section. Look search under Yahoo for Telegraph Online and then Browse the many pages and articles on the pilgrimage found under the travel section. The book is fully reviewed in the newspapers's travel pages, the site has many useful useful facts about the pilgrimage including a FAQ



2. This book is powerful in its simplicity. Stanton's journey is mundane, but from the people he meets and the sites he visits, we learn much about life and travel.Books on the pilgrimage are plenty now, but I would recommend this one for the everyday traveler taking the path.



3. This is a fascinating book, and will appeal both to those who love travel tales and those on a spiritual quest. No self-described holy man, the author is frank about doubting his faith and his ambivalence in making the pilgrimage. Yet you see throughout the book how the journey emptied then replinished him He draws vivid word pictures about the sights, smells and characters that he encounters. If you have a desire to drop out of the hustle and bustle of life to learn to listen to the great, glorious creation around you and the Creator above, then this book will make your feet itch to begin your personal pilgrimage. I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and was enriched by the reading. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!



4. When I bought this book I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd already purchased a couple of pilgrim guides but was hungry for more readable material. This isn't a pilgrim guide but rather a sort of journal of the author's experiences on the Way of St. James.

   For anyone interested in the Camino, hiking or just a well written yarn that's hard to put down, I give "Road of Stars to Santiago" two thumbs up!




5. This was the first book I read about the Camino and it remains, more than a decade and 40 similar texts later, still one of the very best such. If one is to read a single straightforward journal account I can think of no better introduction to the subject.
   
   For my recent compilation of pilgrimage quotations ("Ultreia! Onward! Progress of the Pilgrim") I read all 40 or so contemporary English journal accounts available about the various routes. Stanton's is clearly within the first grouping of 8 or so best such books (i.e. largely those written by established authors and/or academics). And Stanton is immensely quotable; indeed, with 20 such abstracted for my review volume Ultreia!, the Road of Stars to Santiago was the single most quoted text of all.

No comments about Michelin Road Atlas Spain and Portugal Scale 1:400,000.

No comments about Andalucia Travel Map (Globetrotter Travel Map).

No comments about Walking in the Cordillera Cantabrica (Cicerone Mountain Walking).

No comments about The Rough Guides' Algarve Directions 2 (Rough Guide Directions).

No comments about Mirror, Mirror.

1 comments about Atlantis in Spain (Mystic Traveller).

1. Whitshaw spends her life in an arid part of Spain trying to put together and understand several pieces of an unknown pre-Roman ancient civilization. Among the pieces of her most interesting puzzle are an ancient but apparently still functioning (in 1928) aquaduct with no discoverable destination, a castle built of multiple layers each from a different era, unusual ancient mining processes in the rich nearby mining fields, a very puzzling rectangular pool cut in the bottom of the Rio Tinto river, several different and very curious water sources one with an unknown "temple" somewhere out under a desert floor, and the fascinating villagers and local natives of a time when this area was very remote and inaccessable. This is one of my all-time favorite books as it gives not only some very real and mysterious puzzles for the mind to gnaw on but a strong flavor for the time and place Elena writes from. She also suggests other aquaducts scattered along the Rio Tinto river and describes how the area guarded by the castle was the entrance to one of the ancient world's richest mineral fields worked by humans and perhaps, well, something else which is too small and peculiar to be human and digs vertical shafts into mineral deposits unlike any later miners. She also searches for the ways that the ancients got the wealth of this vast mineral field out into the wider world. Truly a book full of food for thought.

2 comments about Knopf CityMap Guide: Madrid (Knopf Citymap Guides).

1. This guide made a 4-day visit to Madrid one of the most enjoyable sightseeing trips I've ever done. It is especially useful for people who like to do sightseeing on their own. Many of Madrid's sights, museums, and treasures are packed into an area that is walking distance from the City center and this innovative travel book made getting from one place to another on foot a breeze.

   It divides the city into sections with a single fold-out page for each section. Each page has an easy-to-use map that can be read without a magnifying glass; brief highlights of the museums with hours and admission information; points of interest; architecture features; history notes as well as a few well-chosen bar, restaurant, and entertainment recommendations. The pages are printed on a heavy card stock so they stand up when you fold them out and the size is perfect for navigating your way as you walk. When closed, it's only a little bigger than a passport and fits in a pocket or small purse.

   We easily walked from our hotel to the Prado, the royal palace, plaza mayor, crystal palace, Atocha train station, and dozens of other sights and museums in just 4 days. The restaurant recommendations were consistently outstanding. In each case, the restaurants were small, beautifully decorated, offered deliciously unique foods at reasonable prices. We would never have found these great restaurants if it were not for the book. They were close to major points of interest, but off the main roads, hidden in alleys and neighborhoods with little signage.

   I've used maps for sightseeing in other cities - Rome, Paris, London, Amsterdam-- but this is the first time I was never lost, never had to ask directions, and enjoyed so many delightful dining experiences. I will definitely look for Knopf's city guide the next time I plan an urban sightseeing trip.




2. I have used many different guidebooks around Europe: Let's Go, Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Eyewitness Guides, and Frommer's and this Knopf CityMap Guide to Madrid was excellent for my trip. I went to Madrid for 8 days for a conference. So I had to be at the conference for 5 days all day except for dinner. This book made it very easy to hit the essentials and find places to eat within the short time I had to explore. The maps are THE BEST MAPS OF ANY GUIDEBOOK! Separated by area of Madrid, they are easy to read, are on stiff pages that don't blow around and get mangled like most do, and are easy to find quickly while walking down the street. The only thing I'd say bad about the maps is that they don't show all of the side streets, but if they did they'd get too busy. It has metro maps too. I found vegetarian food with this guidebook.

No comments about Spain: The Best Travel Writing from the New York Times.

1 comments about Portuguese Cooking: The Traditional Cuisine of Portugal.

1. This is an interesting book, but if you have the 1993 edition, don't bother to buy this. It appears to be, word for word, a reprint of that edition. I thought that it might be updated - or that the travel parts of it might contain modern descriptions alongside the original. But no, it seems to be just a reprint.