Barcelona & Catalonia (Eyewitness Travel Guides) (Turtleback)

by Roger Williams (Author) "Days are long in Barcelona..." (more)
Key Phrases: public hots, Costa Brava, Barcelona Tel, Plaça de Catalunya (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Days are long in Barcelona, the morning extends until well after midday, with lunch starting around 2pm, and the late opening hours mean the afternoon merges into evening. With all of this time on your hands you want to make the most of it, and the Eyewitness Travel to Barcelona and Catalonia will help you to make the most of your time and your trip. Find out intimate details about each of the cities and what to do and see. Don't miss the new feature called Four Great Days in Barcelona. Each day maps out an itinerary ranging from Gaudi Greats to Family Fun.

Product Details

• Turtleback: 208 pages
• Publisher: DK Travel (March 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756615364
• ISBN-13: 978-0756615369
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,804 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Travel > Europe > Spain > Catalonia
  #4 in	Books > Travel > Europe > Spain > Barcelona
  #42 in	Books > Travel > Guidebook Series > Eyewitness

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book, beautiful city, February 11, 2007

By	saliero (NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

I went to Barcelona recently, and in the planning of the trip I consulted four guide books:

Lonely Planet's Barcelona City Guide
Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Barcelona and Catalonia
Cadogan Guides Barcelona (Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls)
Time Out Barcelona

All of them were good. I took two with me: Lonely Planet and Eyewitness.
The reasons I chose those two:

Eyewitness unfailingly has a good quality map, which in my view is LP's downfall. Eyewitness always includes a Street Finder Index which LP does not, and LP often misses out on streets other than the major ones, which can be very frustrating, especially in a city like Barca where there are many alleyways. I never use Eyewitness for hotels - the information is scant and usually more expensive than my (more Lonely Planet) budget, but it has fantastic colour photos and cutaways of buildings, and illustrations which place buildings within their streetscapes. It's a nice book to read on the bus or train going somewhere.

LP specialises in listings, which seemed to be more up-to-date and comprehensive than either Time Out or Cadogan, It also had a good Excursions section which helped a couple of times when I travelled beyond the city. I also liked a couple of the walking routes they recommended. Information on matters such as public transport is comprehensive and detailed. I like the chapters on history, architecture and food as well.

Time Out's great strength was in helping to plan. It had a huge array of hotels, and if you were especially interested in nightlife, I would take Time Out. I was there primarily for a conference, and many of my evenings were organised. And I'm also night a great nightclubber, perhaps contrary to Barca lifestyle!! If you are - consider Time Out. Its maps were pretty good, but not comprehensive for the area I was staying in, beachside Barceloneta.

That is where the Cadogan guide excelled. Its maps were so good that I pulled them out of the book and took them with me. I would have taken the whole book, but for the weight in my suitcase! Its info about places and sights seemed accurate and comprehensive.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loved Barcelona, April 20, 2007

By	Lena Ann Hanson "Willmar traveler" (Willmar, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I really liked the Eye Witness travel guide for Barcelona. It made it very easy to find sites and I love having all the pictures so you can determine if this is a site you actaully want to see. But I do wish that there was a top 10 list of places that you absolutely need to see. You never want to leave a city and think that you missed seeing something very important.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not up to Eyewitness Guide's usual standards, February 12, 2008

By	C. Sum "just another classical pianist" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I usually like using Eyewitness Guides when I travel because they are very visual and have good images and cut-away drawings. Unfortunately, their guide for Barcelona is sadly lacking. One clue is that the book is literally quite thin compared to all the things there are to see and do in this city.

They provide 6 pages for maps, going from the eastern side of Montjuic to the Born district, and north but not quite north enough to show where Gaudi's Park Guell is located. Many of the small streets in the Barri Gotic and Born districts are not even labelled. The northwest portion of the city is not shown and neither is the eastern third of the city, and there are many sights beyond the range of these maps that may interest visitors, including several Modernista (Art Nouveau) buildings. Methods of transport into and around the city are vague - there is only a mention about the very convenient aerobus that goes from the airport to the centrally located Placa de Catalunya with no specifics about cost, frequency of trips, and stops along the way. The listings for hotels and restaurants could easily have been double what they show. Information about getting to outerlying sights such as the monastery at Montserrat was cursory, and trip times were not accurate.

By comparison, we supplemented our trip using the Time Out guide for Barcelona. It was much more informative, had more detailed maps and a sizable quantity of hotels, restaurants and shops covered. Cafes and restaurants are also conveniently tagged on the maps so it's easy to find a nearby place to rest and have a drink or some tapas after an afternoon of sightseeing. We ended up relying more on that guide while over there.

Unless the Eyewitness Guide is revised and expanded in the future, I do not recommend this as the only guide to use for Barcelona.