Eyewitness Travel Guide to Spain (Paperback)

~ Jane Ewart (Editor), Tom Prentice (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensive, engrossing and just plain fun-to-read guidebook than the Eyewitness Travel Guide: Spain. Spilling over with all sorts of useful information for the traveler, you'll find three-dimensional drawings, floor plans, and detailed neighborhood maps, as well as timelines and charts, and even a map of the Metro. Broken into sections including "Introducing Spain," "Region by Region" (covering major cities and areas like Madrid, Barcelona, Basque Country, Andalusia, and the Balearic and Canary islands), "Traveler's Needs," and "Survival Guide," the guide paints a complete picture of the country. Readers will especially love the hundreds of color photos of everything from famous plazas to pitchers of sangria. You'll also find street-by-street illustrated city walks (Old Madrid, which takes in the Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayer, looks especially enchanting), the best paradors, and, of course, tapas bars. --Jill Fergus

Review

...considered to be the world's best travel resource to over 30 destinations around the world, make it easier to plan a splendid vacation. -- North American Press Syndication

Both novice and experienced travelers will be captivated. -- US News & World Report

Each book is a visual as well as informational feast about a particular place. -- The New York Times

Encyclopedic in scope, it's meant to be used before, during, and after your stay. -- Travel & Leisure

The Best Guidebooks Ever -- SKY MAGAZINE

The best travel guides ever. -- Sky Magazine -Delta In flight Magazine

The most graphically exciting and visually pleasing series on the market. -- Chicago Tribune

Want to know where to get a great espresso on your way to the Uffizi? Or how much to tip a hotel maid in New York City? Try these travel guides, each an intricate trove of 3-D aerial views, landmark floor plans, color photos and essential eating, shopping and entertainment info. With titles covering Paris, Prague, and London, these pocket-sized guides are like a Michelangelo fresco: deliriously rich in detail. -- People Magazine

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Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: DK Travel (1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789410680
• ISBN-13: 978-0789410689
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #386,112 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best tour guide book, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

I studied in Madrid for 2 months this summer and lived with 4 other girls that I met through the university. Needless to say we all managed to have different tour books. But this one was best of all. Everyone always wanted to borrow mine because it has great pictures and helpful info like metro stops. I took it everywhere. When we all started packing to go home, no one could fit their tour books and they gladly left them behind. But not me! I'm holding on to this one!

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty pictures, but not suitable for all travelers, June 27, 2001

By	Eugene Wei "eugene" (Santa Monica, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just got back from Spain where I put this guide to the test in several cities. I decided to try this instead of the usual guides I used in the past (Let's Go, Rick Steve's, Lonely Planet, Fodor's, etc.). My overall verdict is that this book is good for a certain type of traveler on a certain type of trip, but can't be leaned on too heavily as a reference guide. It handles a few things better than other guides, but doesn't have enough information for the budget travelers dependent on their guidebooks to make it from place to place.

What it does better than other guides is provide beautiful color photographs and cutaway diagrams of major sights, like cathedrals and museums and select neighborhood in major cities. Unlike other guidebooks, the photos are presented on thick glossy paper, providing extremely vivid coloring. I leaned heavily on the city-map of Madrid to find my way to the right metro stations for all the sites. Each chapter on a town had a fairly good list of sites to see along with operating hours, and each one was keyed to a map so I could easily navigate to the site. The subway map of Madrid inside the back cover was super useful. It has a list of restaurants and hotels for various cities all in two color-coded appendixes at the back of the book, and the price ranges listed are wider than other guidebooks like Let's Go or Rick Steve's, which focus on hostels and budget hotels. You'll find five star hotels and "jacket and tie required" restaurants in the Eyewitness Guide.

But many travelers will find the book problematic. First, it has very little information on how to get from one destination to another. Rick Steve's and Let's Go, which my travel companions brought, were much better on this front. Those two books saved me countless trips to tourist offices and train/bus stations and were worth buying for that reason alone. The Eyewitness guide just have had general travel info as an appendix in the back of the book, but very little on travel from one particular town to another. Not a problem if your travel plans were made out all in advance, but a fatal flaw if you're figuring it out as you go.

A few other problems: the high quality paper means the books is much heavier than other guidebooks. Walking around in the heat, I didn't appreciate having to lug it in my backpack. Also, the restaurant and hotel listings are pretty skimpy--just two pages of restaurants and hotels for Madrid?! Other guidebooks are more complete--Eyewitness tends to focus on a few restaurants and hotels across a broad price range, though I have no idea how those particular ones were selected.

In summary, I think this guidebook works great if you have all your travel between towns and lodging in each destination set ahead of time. This guidebook will help you pick out a few sites to visit in each area and provide great photos for each. For the budget traveler/backpacker who needs to figure out how to get from one town to the next on the fly, Let's Go or Rick Steve's or a book like that is essential. Next time I travel, I'm buying Let's Go before the trip, and if I'm in a particular town for a while, I might pick up an Eyewitness Guide once I'm in town and then toss it out once I leave. Or perhaps buy one at home and tear out the relevant pages to bring along. They make Eyewitness Guides for particular destinations, like Madrid only, which might be a better value than the entire Spain guide if you're only hitting a few spots.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful info packed book., October 6, 1999

By	T. W. Seace (Atlanta, Ga) - See all my reviews

This book is wonderful and visually exciting! Its color pictures, maps and legends to historical sites make it a "must have" for travel to Spain, but what is even more exciting is the timeline detailing the country's history, from being part of the Roman Empire to Moorish influence, right up to present day. Among the myriad of covered topics, there are souvenir and shopping recommendations, information on medical care, a calender of festivals, and even a weather guide. The indespensible information and the sheer beauty of the book make it a real page turner. You're not bogged down by too long explanations or endless rambling. It whets your appetite for the culture and doesn't let you down. Going to Spain? Don't go without this book.