Frommer's Spain [With Map] [Paperback]

This book has almost everything for planning a trip around Spain, its includes and of nice pictures, maps, and Prices. you can even select an accommodation within your budget, you will know all details before stepping in Spain.

I will be visiting Madrid Spain this summer. Partly, to attend a professional conference. Partly to learn more and experience a place that I have never been to before. This guide is a great help in planning activities once I get to Spain. I have had good luck with prior Frommer's guides, and I hope that this lives up to its predecessors.

Structure of this volume? At the outset, the book discusses "the best of" Spain, including small towns, vineyards, museums, and restaurants. A second chapter provides more detail on Spain and what to do while there. Chapter 3 is a series of itineraries. Then, in depth views of various areas within the country--Madrid, Andalusia, Barcelona, the Basque Country, and so on among the chapters. For each area explored, the reader will learn where to stay, where to eat, getting around, and places to see and so on.

To provide an example. . . . Madrid. The chapter begins with a discussion of transportation, the layout of the city, important neighborhoods. I will be using the Madrid Metro, and there is a nice map of the system (forewarned is forearmed). Then, discussions of places to see, such as The Prado, the Royal Palace, cathedrals, art galleries, and so on. In short, a nice--albeit not lengthy--summary of suggested places to go and to see.

The last two sections? One focuses on planning for the trip to Spain. The final segment of the book is the always helpful listing of terms and phrases.

I look to this volume as a provider of useful information when I visit Madrid. And the track record of Frommer's volumes is that I will find it a helpful resource once I get to Madrid.

This tour guide had some decent information in it, but it also had maps that were rather useless and information that was either wrong or dated. The maps within each city description did not include train stations for Seville and Cordoba (two cities we visited) and since train travel is a great way to get around Spain, arriving in a city without a map that includes the train location makes it a bit difficult. The maps also did not carry enough detail and we even came across one map in the guide that was published with the north side of the city facing down - intuitively flawed.

The guide also listed a gay bar in Madrid that was nothing like its description - it ended up being a hustler bar and there were plenty of better options and so how this information got included, I am not sure. Overall, I have used more reliable tour guides from other publishers. This book is flashy looking - but I'd forego this one.