I just returned fm Barcelona and brought 5 guidebooks (Fodors See It Barcelona, Frommers 24 Great Walks in Barcelona, Frommers Barcelona day by day, and Time Out Barcelona, and EasyMap Barcelona) because none of them really filled the one-stop-shop I was looking for.
This book was the best of the bunch. It was compact and concise, albeit a bit out of date. The maps were ok, but they lacked the detail that you need for the twisted streets of the gothic quarter. The major plus of the book was its breakdown of what to do by day/priority and interest categories. It has a What To Do on Day 1, then Day 2, then Day 3, plus walks by area and interest areas including architecture, culinary and history walks. Unfortunately, there wasnt a lot of detail about what we were seeing once we got there, so we had to supplement the info with the seemingly lead-bound Fodors tome (doubles as a weapon, apparently).
The front cover has a pretty good small map plus a metro map, and it also includes a big map that was useless since it didnt have any info whatsoever on it. We ended up leaving it in the room.
My recommendation is that if you have only 3 or fewer days in BCN, just get this book. If more, then also get the Frommers 24 walks, which we used quite a bit, but only as a supplement.
Here is my summary reviews
Frommers Barcelona day by day - 4*
See It Barcelona - 3*
Frommers 24 great walks in Barcelona - 5*
Time Out Barcelona - 2*
EasyMap Barcelona - 1*
