Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Barcelona

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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:

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.

I took Eyewitness because it 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.

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.

I am generally a big fan of the Lonley Planet series, having used several of their country guides (Mexico, Central America, and Switzerland). This was my first experience using a more specific, city guide for travel, and I was dissapointed in the overall usefulness of this book.

My main concern with this book was its organization and ease of use. I found that the way in which the information was organized made it difficult to navigate the book and coordinate the various entries for restaraunts and attractions with their map locations.

The guide is organized by topic - general info for the tourist, getting there and away, where to stay, eat, and things to do. With regard to the hotel, restaraunt and attraction sections, the information is further divided by city section. Once you have decided where you want to eat or what you want to see, you have to turn to the back of the book and find the corresponding map section. As is typical with the Lonley Planet maps, attractions are given number and symbols on the map with the corresponding key on another page. These maps were so full of detail and information that it often became difficult to quickly find a location on a map. This guide would have been greatly enhanced if entries in the book were better cross-referenced with the maps at the end of the book, and if there had been some kind of index that tied it all together.

On a more positive note, the entries for museums and other city attractions were very good, often as good as any brocure that you would recieve on a given attraction.

I did not look at any other Barcelona guide books, so I cannot say how this one compares with others. I did, however, have to buy a better city map when I got there (the AA Map of Barcelona)in order to find my way around the city. The Lonley Planet maps (7 in all) in the back of the book were simply not sufficient.

I found this book helpful and easy to use. I liked it better that Fodor's. Those travelling in Barcelona should be warned against the muggers. I was violently mugged less than a block from my hotel off of La Rambla. I heard many other similar tales from those who were in Barcelona at the time or have been there at other times.

Overall the book is very good, and would be useful to anyone visiting Barcelona for the first time. However, it seems to be targeted mostly at middle-aged-professional-types. Most of the restaurant recommendations are not ideal for a student budget, for instance.

We spent 3-1/2 months in Barcelona and almost wore out our copy of the Lonely Planet Barcelona 1st edition. We found so many fantastic restaurants that were recommended in Lonely Planet. This book is dead-on and gives an unbiased view of the city and the sights, good and bad.

I visited Barcelona to attend one of the Forum events scheduled all year long. The Lonely Planet guide was of no help as the Forum was not on the map. The subway stop and the tram were also not on the map. This is a major attraction in Barcelona. Also, Lonely Planet advised that hostales don't take reservations- this is outdated information as I booked my room on line with no problem. My advice to Lonely Planet is: time for a new edition!

We used Lonely Planet guidebooks all over Europe while we were there with our kids for 7 months. This book was the first time Lonely Planet let us down.

The book is organized badly and it was full of bad information. Two of the restaurants that were recommended in the book (both of which sounded as if they had been there forever) were nowhere to be found. In fact, one was a pile of rubble. This was very frustrating when you're hungry and you're dragging four kids around the city looking for a place to eat.

I've always found LP guidebooks helpful - they fit our budget, have an interesting range of suggestions for sights to see, and are usually dead-on with descriptions. This was the first one that let us down on our travels. It is very frustrating for two people new to a city to make their way, starving at 3 pm, to a "highly recommended" restaurant and find it no longer in business. And this happened to us thrice! Two restaurants had closed down, and one had changed name and ownership. We had also taken DK's Real City Barcelona guide, and this was much more useful. Its choices were affordable (look for the check mark next to the listing that indicates a good deal), diverse and filled with locals - always a positive sign.
I did still use Lonely Planet for planning itineraries for our days in Barcelona, but feel the book has lost some of the go-to quality that I once associated with LP guides. Time for a new edition, and one that thoroughly investigates what goes between the covers!

This book definitely needs to be updated. I was able to use it for general information, but when it came to actually getting around and practical advice for restaurants, hotels, etc., I found the Top Ten guide much more helpful. In retrospect, I would not have purchased this book.

This map is small. A good overview of Barcelona, but if you really want to navigate the streets by foot, you need a bigger map. Though this map shows most of the streets, a lot of them aren't labeled. You are better off just getting the Lonely Planet book and using the map in the back. The only good thing about this map is that its laminated.