Customer Reviews

Rick Steves' Portugal 2005

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Yes, as the prior review mentions, the road info may not be accurate... but there's a lot more to this book. I live in Lisbon and recommend it to all our visitors as it has excellent info on making your way through Sintra, Belém, Tavira, etc. If you're a first-time visitor looking for insider-type tips on the "highlights" of Portugal, this book is worth considering. (It is limited to a few key Portuguese cities/sites, so don't expect an overview of everything in this beautiful country.)

We took the Rough Guide, The Eyewitness Guide, and the Rick Steves guide on our recent trip to Portugal. Rick Steves gives you a different perspective from the other books, one worth having.

Some of the differences:
1. He only includes the places and sights that he thinks are worth your time, so if you have a short trip, or you don't want to do a lot of research on the best sights, this is a great book.
2. Although he does recommend restaurants, he also gives more general info on finding good food, such as a street or area where there are a number of good restaurants. We found that restaurants that were mentioned by name in the guidebooks were often overrun with tourists, but those we found with Steves' tips were not.

On the other hand, we made a day trip to a wonderful town that was not mentioned in Steves' book. So it's always good to take more than one guidebook.

Rick Steves gives a thorough and accurate picture of Portugal with great detail and accurate directions. He helped us make decisions on places to see and things to do in our 10-day trip this summer. I also appreciated the background he gave on several of the sites, making it easier to understand what we were seeing without paying for a guide.

The only knocks on Steves is that his approach is totally focused on a single adult or an adult couple traveling through the country. He doesn't take into account differences in tastes for teens or children. For example, some of his highest recommendations on sites to see are museums that my teens found boring. Maybe a tag on sites and activities to indicate which would be more youth oriented would be helpful. Also, although the book was copyrighted in 2009, the prices of many entry fees were off by as much as 20 percent.

Great guide book. Steves' knowledge of the country is evident. Pick carefully the elements that would be of most interest to you and give yourself LOTS of time to get around between sites. If driving, traffic and parking are always issues. If using public transportation, remember you'll have to walk a lot between locations. We rented a car and drove (which Steves recommends against) and had good luck getting around with a GPS and even found parking fairly easily everywhere we went. Also budget higher for activities than shown in the book. And if driving, add funds to your budget for toll roads, which are everywhere.

This book will definitely help you enjoy Portugal. Bon voyage!

I have a library of travel guides for various European cities and Rick Steves are by far the finest. The guided tours are extremely accurate and his ratings of the sites are an immense help. I recently used his guide to Barcelona and I didn't miss a quality site.

The directions are very accurate and have enabled me to find sites a lot of guide book would omit. The hotel information is very accurate and I always check the guide before I stay anywhere!

We did not like Rick's Portugal book but loved his Spain book. **We used it for Lisbon only** Perhaps other cities are easier to navigate but we had trouble with his maps and it was hard to follow his suggested walks through the city. We did figure everything out eventually, it was just not as well laid out as the Spain book- I think having another book or more detailed maps might have been more helpful. (I think he does suggest getting another city map upon arrival- I just find it annoying to have a book and a huge map while wandering around- his Spain book was nice in that we only needed the book).

Even if he had a map section at the end with more details, it would have been nice. I'm not sure why he uses maps that look like they were drawn, as if by hand, instead of using an actual map in his books... they're cute/quaint to look at but horrible for directions.

We used RS's guide as our primary guidebook. Great (funny) descriptions. Especially good walking tours. But note that his maps are fine if you're walking, but leave something to be desired if you're driving. Would definitely recommend getting a real map if you do decide to drive, and would recommend also bringing either Lonely Planet or Rough Guides for more ideas on where to stay/eat (and much better maps) if you're going during high season as RS's recommendations might be sold out. DK is also recommended for trip planning purposes (much wider coverage of the smaller towns and things to see and do than RS), but leave at home once you go as it is a heavy book.

The Rick Steves' Portugal guidebook provides only the barest information about places to visit. It covers the major sites only. This was my first intro to it having used the Frommer's and Fodor's for other European places. The RS writers make periodic attempts at wry humor which have a decided political bias, like reading usual newspapers from the USA, they amounted to little more than moral posturing for the reader. For travelers with any real interest in visiting sites of historic cultural appeal, this may not be your guidebook. I can't imagine ever purchasing another from the series.

However, the book is quite small. It is much shorter and generally smaller in size than his other books and should probably not cost as much as larger more informative books cost. I don't know how accurate the prices are but the descriptions are engaging and interesting.

This is the 5th trip we've planned with Rick Steves as our guide. Especially his walking tours of towns. For this one, his information helped us tailor our trip and it turned out that he was exactly right. We think he is a terrific guide. The right information, the right directions, just enough background.

After a few other trips using his guides, we've learned not to follow his accomodation recommendations -- not quite our likes.

In any case -- I wouldn't plan a trip to Europe without seeing what Rick has to say first!

I'm a big fan of Rick and his guide books, and have used them in the past.

This book is great in Lisbon. Overall the historical walks give you a great guide to the city. One note on the Alfama walk he has you go to the start point and then recommends that you should skip it.

Outside of lisbon it is a disappointment. He's done great driving tours in other countries and this would be perfect, especially n the algarve. His recommended trip is also very demanding with not much time to catch your breath. Hope the next edition is better.