1 comments about Top 10 Costa Blanca (EYEWITNESS TOP 10 TRAVEL GUIDE).

1. I didn't know anything about the Costa Blanca, so I wanted a book that would show us what this coast was all about for a short holiday.
   
   This book certainly did this. We used it to find where to stay, different beaches to check out and walks to do.
   
   I would recommend this guide as a sweet introduction to the costa blanca.

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

No comments about Blue Guide Madrid, Second Edition (Blue Guides).

No comments about In the Lands of the Enchanted Moorish Maiden: Islamic Art in Portugal (Islamic Art in the Mediterranean).

5 comments about Eyewitness Travel Guide to Barcelona and Catalonia.

1. This is a great book for any newcomer to the beautiful city of Barcelona. The images pull you in, and the background history on the Barcelona area is well done. My only gripe is that the "rest of Catalonia" section is quite small for all that's out there! If you're spending a few days in Barcelona, this is the book to buy. If you plan to spend most of your time in the surrounding region, or in the Balearic islands, I'd skip it.



2. This guide is not up to the usual D-K standard. I like to take pictures for photo.net when I travel and it is very helpful to have the little sample photos of destinations so that one can decide whether or not to invest the time.

   But D-K Barcelona is very skimpy on details and also on tourist attractions and facilities as soon as you venture out of the Old City.

   For authoritative restaurant and hotel recommendations, go with Michelin Red. For architecture and art history, get the Blue Guide. For nightlife, try the TimeOut guide. Overall, people say that the Rough Guide is very good.

   Whatever guidebook you choose, watch your belongings in Barcelona. Pickpocketing is an industry there, esp. in the Old City and on La Rambla. Women should not carry purses. Men should keep money in a money belt or zippered inner jacket pocket. Limit yourself to one camera that you can keep in your hands at all times.




3. .
   Great Travel Guide, Beautiful Coffee Table Book!

   Summary:
   Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!

   The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.

   The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
   ............Very complete
   ............Easy to read
   ............Beautifully and artistically completed
   ............Good shopping, safety and other tips
   ............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.

   Specifics:
   The guides are organized as follows:

   How to use this guide
   Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
   Geographical Regions
   ............Introduction Barcelona and Catalonia
   ........................Intro to Barcelona / Catalonia
   ........................Portrait of Catalonia
   ........................Catalonia Through the Year (events, holidays)
   ........................History of Catalonia

   ............Barcelona Area by Area, each section includes:
   ........................Introduction to street by street area

   ........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings
   ........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
   ........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.

   ........................Barcelona At a Glance
   ........................Old Town
   ........................Eixample
   ........................Monjuic
   ........................Further Afield

   ............Catalonia Area by Area
   ........................Llieda, Andorra, Girona, Barcelona Province, Tarragona

   Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
   ............Hotels
   ............Restaurants, cafes, bars
   ............Shopping
   ............Entertainment
   ............Outdoor activities

   Survival Information
   ............Practical
   ........................Tourist info., Etiquete, Personal Security and Health
   ........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.
   ............Travel Information (Getting to Barcelona )

   ............Street Maps (Getting Around Barcelona )

   ............General Index
   ............Catalan Phrase Book
   ............Barcelona Metro and Train Routes (Maps)

   Discussion:
   The book begins with "Introducing Barcelona", including a complete map, a review, the city's history, and Barcelona thought the Year - including events, etc.

   Areas with an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or forums, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.

   Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.

   The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I have used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, in most European cities, and Dorling has yet to disappoint me. I have found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions.

   The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.

   Traveling to Barcelona Specifically:
   Do it! I have never been disappointed with Barcelona, its people, its food, or anything at all. It is definitely one of the better European cities to visit, or spend time in. Also, just south of Barcelona is a little town called "Sitges" which is an absolute Mediterranean gem! Gorgeous, friendly, beautiful beaches, and very comfortable to simple visit and relax in!

   Conclusion:
   Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.




4. Usually the Eyewitness series guide for whatever city is an unbeatable guidebook, however this one comes up a little short. It has all the great photos, as always the maps are excellent, the pictures/descriptions of the foods & architecture are very good. It is the same successful formula they use in their series of guidebooks but here they could have expanded some where they condensed. There is nothing in the book about bullfighting, or flamenco; there are 2 pages on Romanesque architecture, 2 pages on Modernism architecture, nothing on Gothic even though Barcelona has one of the most complete Gothic neighborhoods in all of Europe. The first 40 pages are history and introduction, food, flora, art etc.: Only 49 pages on the city sights, 20 pages on the rest of Catalonia. It is as if they rushed to compact everything as they might with somewhere much larger, like New York City. The book could have relaxed and breathed a bit more. The town of Tarragona with its great cathedral and fantastic Roman ruins only gets two columns of ink. There are only 6 pages of detailed maps in the back, Parc Guell is not even on the map.
   If you are going to BCN you should get this book, match it up with National Geographic Traveler Barcelona and the Time Out Guide



5. I've been born in Barcelona and I am an enthusiastic traveller all around the world and a travel guide collector. It is true that the visual standard of the Eyewitness travel Guides is topnotch (oh, that beautiful DK design...), but the lack of really useful information is certainly a problem of these guides. And here, with the Barcelona guide, that problem is even more evident than in others. Yes, it is good for the top visits you need to do during a week-end, but it lacks the necessary info for a long-term stay (that Barcelona is certainly worth) or for a trip to be planned on your own. What about low-budget hotels and restaurants? Not even one. What about information about timetables, trains, buses? Where are they? The Lonely planet / Rough guides may be less lush, but certainly more useful concerning such matters (with good reviews concerning hotels/ restaurants/ services... for all budgets). Not to mention the lack of detailed information about gastronomy/ history/ culture. It is painful.
   
   So, it seems that the Eyewitness travels are aimed to customers with their trip arranged in a circuit... staying about one night or two in Barcelona and who need a minimal information for their stay.

No comments about Fodor's Exploring Spain, 8th Edition (Exploring Guides).

5 comments about Michelin Spain & Portugal Tourist and Motoring Atlas (Michelin Tourist and Motoring Atlas).

1. We used this atlas for a 2 week road trip through Spain, and found it to be very helpful. I had also mapped routes using various internet sources, and having this atlas was better as we could change our minds and pick other routes, if we felt we wanted to. Sometimes the numbers of the highways didn't match exactly, but that can happen at anytime, anywhere. Maps and atlases are frequently outdated as soon as they are printed. But this one gives the best information available here in the States, I think.
   
   There aren't really any good maps of individual cities in the atlas, which might be a drawback. I did need to get individual maps of cities separately, which wasn't that big of a bother for us but it is something to consider. Overall, a very good road atlas if contemplating a road trip to Spain/Portugal. Easy to read and a good size to handle. Granted, there were two of us, so one driving and one navigating probably made it a bit easier to read the atlas!



2. I took a week long trip to Spain this summer and this atlas was extremely helpful. Getting around using the backroads in the area my family was from was easy due to the detail of the atlas. I did come across some new highways that weren't on the map yet, but I can't really fault them for that. Description of roadsigns and symbols in the back was also helpful.



3. If you will be driving around Spain and/or Portugal this is worth getting



4. We used these maps to travel from Lisbon to the Algarve in the south of Portugal to Seville, then onto Granada, and back to Lisbon. They are wonderful! They are excellently detailed & yet easy to read. Buy them if you planning on driving in Europe. You will not regret your purchase.



5. A great resource for driving in Spain. Durable book that gets thrown around in a car and spilled on, but survives! Clear format and large print, even down to the confusing Spanish road numbers. Might have been helpful to have some explanation about those multiple road numbers on each highway, but we eventually figured it out.

No comments about Costa Brava/Andorra (GeoCenter Detail Map).

No comments about Spain (Eyewitness Travel Guide).

No comments about Foreigners in Spain: Triumphs & Disasters.