2 comments about The Rough Guide to Madrid.

1. I found this guide of Madrid to be extremely useful. It provided a good deal of history for the local sights and events and wasn't too conspicuous to carry around. I recommend this book without hesitation.



2. I am an experienced traveler (30+ countries) who is nearing retirement and plan to travel extensively, who has recently become obsessed about finding "good" guidebooks. So this review is a comparison of the books I looked at for Madrid.

   I started with the Insight Guide. I was seeking to get background, history, etc. The Insight Guides seem to vary enormously from one to the next in both quality and orientation. I think they are good for an entire country if you are trying to decide where in the country or what parts you want to see. I thought the guide for Madrid was useless. It provided very little information about the city or the culture. It seemed to be best if you were planning on moving to Madrid and wanted to find out the differences between the various suburban areas. I suggest you forget this one.

   I looked at the Mini-Rough Guide. I didn't like the format and it was too terse for my taste. In my opinion, Rough Guide still needs to produce a guide for Madrid that is a regular, not a mini Rough Guide. The LP Guide to Madrid seemed pretty mediocre. The stiff covers also made it awkward to use or hold open to a particular page. The information and descriptions were inadequate compared to some other guides. The Eyewitness Guide to Madrid is, I think, the best overall guide to Madrid. (Generally I prefer Eyewitness guides for City's much more than as a guide for an entire country.) The maps are good, the pictures of the food and other items are very helpful. The hotels and restaurant sections were pretty good, but not great. If you are looking for hostels, you will need the LP guide. Eyewitness does not give great historical depth, but it gives you some, probably enough for most tourists. Guide Books are not the best source for detailed historical and cultural information anyway. The Time Out guide was almost like a tourist's yellow pages, primarily a listing of hotels, restaurants, sites, services, etc. It had the best listing of restaurants and hotels and covered all price ranges. It wasn't as good as Eyewitness is describing the things to see and do.

   I ended up getting the Eyewitness Guide to use while sightseeing, supplemented by the Time Out guide for picking hotels, restaurants and being able to look up things. Another reviewer recommended this same combination in order to visit Tapas bars. I'm not that much into Tapas, but I still think these two are the best combo.

   Incidentally, the Spain Rough and LP guides Madrid sections do not cover Madrid as well as the Madrid-only guides. You are looking at a 60-page section, compared to the Madrid-only guides of around 300 pages length.

No comments about Travellers Menorca, 2nd: Guides to destinations worldwide (Travellers - Thomas Cook).

1 comments about Madrid Destination Map (National Geographic Destination Map).

1. High quality and durable. My husband spent a few years in Madrid once and he likes reminiscing about the areas he's been to. This was a Christmas present for a guy who had no Christmas list and I'm really glad I got it. Note: it only shows the main city center and no 'burbs, but for what it displays it is fabulous!

No comments about The Pyrenees: The High Pyrenees from the Cirque de Lescun to the Carlit Massif (World Mountain Ranges).

No comments about National Geographic Traveler: Barcelona, 3rd Edition (National Geographic Traveler).

No comments about The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

No comments about Magellan: Ferdinand Magellan the First Trip Around the World (Exploring the World).

No comments about The Rough Guide to Madeira 1 (Rough Guide Mini Guides).

No comments about The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon.

2 comments about Snowball Oranges: A Winter's Tale on a Spanish Isle.

1. I bought this book at LA Airport just before flying to the UK, and I have to say that reading it made short of the long journey.  I read it in one go, and my outbursts of snickering and laughing must have had my fellow travellers wondering if I was a few oranges short of the pound.
    
   This book is unique in the travel genre in that the writer has a wonderful ability to tell his story as though it were a novel instead of just a travelogue.  His sharply-observed portrayal of rural Majorcan characters and his vivid descriptions of the island's scenery and cuisine are so realistic that you can almost feel the sunshine, taste the food and smell the orange blossom.
    
   I enjoyed the book so much that I bought the sequel, 'Manana, Manana', as soon as I arrived in the UK, and it lived up to my expectations and more.  Next day I booked my first vacation to Majorca, and I can't wait to visit the places so graphically depicted in these books.  You can bet I'll be first in line to buy the third in the series whenever it's published.  Estupendo, Don Pedro!



2. I bought this book two days ago and have to say that I have strugglled to put it down since. For anyone with an interest in travel and the charismatic characters one meets this is an essential read. It is written in almost a novel format and whilst this does much to enrich the individual chapters I did feel that this style did mean that some of the warmth of the principal characters was lost.In this sense it fell short of other books in the genre, notably Chris Stewart's Driving over lemons. However, Kerr's detailed descriptions of his neigbours were a pleasue to read. At times it is laugh out loud funny and just looking at the next paragraph would prompt another outburst. A good read. Now where is my passport?