Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Spain (8th Edition)

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

 

 

We used The Rough Guide to Spain whilst travelling on foot and by public transport in Spain. Apart from a small pocket sized dictionary or phrase book and maps it was, quite simply, all that we needed.

This is the only book you will ever need while traveling in Spain. I hope it is sufficient to say that I own the 5th, the 6th, the 7th and the 8th edition of this book. During the past 10 years I visited all regions in Spain and this book has been a excellent help.

This is an excellant travel guide book. It is an essential book for any one traveling to Spain, especially if this is your virgin trip to the country. There is a broad spectrum of choices to choose from, from the very inexpensive to the very expensive. It fills the palette for all tastes. The inexpensive choices give you a taste for the culture and people of the area that you visit and their comments are honest and helpful. I will buy this guide wherever I travel.

The most recent edition of this book would be better called the "approximate" guide to Spain. Much of the information in this book is simply wrong: maps were upside down (north pointing downwards), accomodations recommended were often dirty or unpleasant or much more expensive than the rough guide said or than alternatives we found on our own, descriptions of things such as the entrances to cathedrals and locations of turists offices were wrong, and often instead of recommending specific places the authors just recommended checking with the local turist offices for accomodations and other information -- making us question what the book was good for anyway. I had a much much better experience with the Lonely Planet guides. Do not buy this book if you are looking for help getting around Spain.

I love Rough guides but I was very disappointed to see that the sixth edition (and I'm sure this new edition is not an exception)shows most of the names written in "Spanish" either in Portuguese (wonderful Portuguese, congratulations!) or in a kind of weird language that Spanish-speaking people like me are very much used to see in most of the travel guides. I guess quoting names from other languages is not very important for the authors of travel guides in general but I was expecting more accuracy from the famous Rough guides. Can anyone tell me the meaning of oye (with an accent on the e)in Spanish? It's on the very first page. Very sad.