Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Spain (Spain, 3rd ed)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My wife and I have come to swear by Lonely Planet books for off-the-beaten-track advice on trips to Taiwan, Costa Rica, Thailand, and Peru. When we decided to visit Spain, we immediately bought the latest edition (3rd) of Lonely Planet Spain. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that what we needed instead were the City Guides for Madrid and Barcelona. The book covered all of Spain fairly, but was very skimpy on info about both of these cities. We found the detail we needed by exchanging this book for both the City Guides and an extra $5. If you are travelling Spain for an extended period, and will get all over the country, then this tome is for you (and will probably be worth it). If instead you are trying to hit the highlights of Spain, or want to base your vacation out of either Madrid or Barcelona, then skip it and find a better book.

And incidentally, I think it's a pretty lame gambit from LP to start yanking all the detail from the national-level books and slipping it into the city guides. You always end up buying more books, since you can't get the info you want in any one place! Not fair to your customers, guys!

I travel a lot, and have found Lonely Planet guides to be a big help... I still do... granted, some of the info is inaccurate (particularly with prices), but every guidebook provides a caveat at its beginning to warn readers of unstable prices... generally the inaccuracies never amount to more a pitance.

I found the LP Spain book to be more useful than the Let's Go! Spain guidebook as the LP book had more background information, more listings for places to stay and more maps with better detail... unfortunately, as one of the other reviewers mentioned, this book and many of their other guide books are starting to refer you to other LP mini guides... they used to throw everything you needed between those covers, but these days you almost have to carry a small library around with you to get what a early 90s LP book would give you. Still better than Let's Go!, but for how long?...

My wife and I just completed a tour of some of the major cities of Spain. Before we went, we purchased this Lonely Planet rather than the individual city guides. Since we were part of a tour and merely wanted some supplemental information, we purchased this one.

The information they give on each of the sites and monuments is helpful. Although it didn't go into intense detail, you did get enough background historical information to make some sense. This book also gave us some good ideas of sites to see which the tour we took did not tell us about.

Some of the information is a little inaccurate, don't take this information as 100 percent correct. For instance, admission to the Capilla Real is 350 ptas and not 300. The hours were a little off also. We did find the maps to be pretty accurate. The walking tour of Madrid was a little more difficult to follow, but it could be done.

A fellow traveler had the Let's Go book for Spain and Portugal. Consistently, we found her looking at our Lonely Planet for better information.

I would recommend this book for a trip to Spain. Remember that it is supplemental and should not be taking as 100 percent accurate.

I spent the past summer 2002 studying Spain and I constantly referred to this book for traveling and background information. I really liked the writing style that is clear, and even a bit funny at times. The only thing that keeps this book from truly earning 5 stars is the fact that a lot of the times and prices are really off. I felt that though it was a new edition, they did nothing to update it. I wish they would have gone back and checked to see the prices of the hostels had changed-you will too. Add about 600-800 pesetas to the quoted hostel prices.

Yeah, this book is a lot better than nothing, or even some of their lackluster competitors in the guidebook industry. LP's maps and format are better than the others. However... some of the other reviewers were right on in the complaints dept. This book gives too little of the essential info you buy a guide for; i.e. transport options and hotel details. Given that the writer supposedly lives in Spain, some of the sketchiness concerning hotels and restaurants is inexcusable. The prices are also way off; apparently, nobody bothered to revisit the museums and hotels to check up on things. The Latin American guides do a much better job describing places a lot harder to cover than Spain or most of the other only tolerable European guides, for that matter. I don't think I stayed in more than a couple of the recommended hotels for the whole two months I spent in Europe using numerous LP guides. Luckily for LP, their competition is even worse.

This book I found superior to competitors. Its maps were better and more detailed, allowing me to get aorund Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and the little towns of ALgicerias and La Linia without any trouble. It is a wonderful book and also has a wide variety of places to stay unlike some guidebooks which only have the most expensive or the cheapest(and most savage) places to stay. I was very happy when I found myself alone in Madrid to have this book.

This is a very good book for travellers. I bought it when going to Spain last October and really gave me lots of info on where to stay and eat. Most of the information it gives you is correct and if you really know how to take the benefit out of it, then is great. It needs more info on some parts of Spain, but I guess they didn't do it like that so it doesn't get too big. In general is a very good book and no-one who travels to Spain should go without it.

Spain is an excellent travel document that will allow the reader to understand a great deal about the country. More than just a listing of the good hotels or restaurants, a thorough review of the information provided will allow a reader to understand why to go to Spain instead of just where. It's worth the money, even if you're only interested in Spain.