Spain [Paperback]

My only real complaint was that I thought that, generally speaking, the guide's star system for rating sights/attractions underrates Spanish attractions relative to those in other countries. For example, cities like Caceres, Ronda, and Cuenca would surely get 3-star ratings if they were located in France or especially the United States, instead of Spain. Overall, I guess I felt that the raters were relatively "harsh" when assigning stars to attractions in Spain, when I compare this guide to some of Michelin's other guides for other countries I have visited. The nice thing is that when you visit "two-star" sights in Spain, expecting to see what you would normally see in a Green Guide two-star sight elsewhere, you'll be pleasantly surprised!

The good news first. The Green Guide to Spain is very compact and comparatively cheap. In the entries on Spain's major cities, you'll find some good lists of places to stay, eat, and see. The guide recommends a handful of great driving excursions outside the major cities, as well as brief entries on most of the seldom-visited large towns (places like Guadix, Soria, and Toro). It has a strong section on the Balearic and Canary Islands. It's numerous maps are decent. And the author has included just the right amount of color photographs -- not so many that they take up a lot of space, but not so few that you have no feel ahead of time for what the places you want to visit look like.

The bad news. First, I just had the gut-feeling as I flipped through this guide that it's not something I would actually take with me to Spain. The format is like an almanac -- dry, even superficial. The twenty-two page entry on Barcelona, for instance, is just a list of things to see, without any sort of background information on these places. You might take this guide to Barcelona and never have any idea what Catalan culture is. And even if you're just looking for something functional, the Green Guide has at least one notable drawback -- it doesn't list the hours of museums and other sites, nor will you find their addresses, phone numbers, and entrance fees.

Second, the title of this book should be "Cities of Spain," not "Spain". Visiting cities and large towns will probably make up most of your trip, but there's so much to see off the proverbial beaten track -- national parks, for instance. This guide's coverage of Spain's gorgeous parks is scanty.

The guide also comes up short on the less-visited northern regions of Spain. Beautiful Asturias, for instance, is lumped together with Cantabria in a whopping three pages under the title "Costa Verde". Going to Luarca? All this guide will tell you is that the town has seven bridges and houses with slate roofs! And even where there's more substance to the entries, all too often it's just a list of Gothic churches. So much worth seeing gets completely ignorned.

If you're not planning your trip down to the last detail and want to discover what there is to see during your travels, this is a tolerably good guide. But if you're like me and want to know a lot about a place before going to see it, this isn't the right one for you.

I say, spend the extra 30 or 40 bucks and buy a couple of good regional or city guides -- it's worth the money. The Eyewitness guides and Knopf's guides are beautifully designed and provide a wealth of background information, something any trip to Spain would be incomplete without. For the Pyrenees region I recommend the marvelous Rough Guide to the Pyrenees. (Their guide to Madrid is also pretty good). The Cadogan regional guides are invariably great, as are Let's Go and Lonely Planet. Insight Spain is just big sunny brochure, but the regional and city Insight guides are worth checking out. Try Rick Steves, too. Or you just see some of my ListMania lists.