Madrid

I am an experienced traveler (30+ countries) who is nearing retirement and plan to travel extensively, who has recently become obsessed about finding "good" guidebooks. So this review is a comparison of the books I looked at for Madrid.I started with the Insight Guide. I was seeking to get background, history, etc. The Insight Guides seem to vary enormously from one to the next in both quality and orientation. I think they are good for an entire country if you are trying to decide where in the country or what parts you want to see. I thought the guide for Madrid was useless. It provided very little information about the city or the culture. It seemed to be best if you were planning on moving to Madrid and wanted to find out the differences between the various suburban areas. I suggest you forget this one.I looked at the Mini-Rough Guide. I didn't like the format and it was too terse for my taste. In my opinion, Rough Guide still needs to produce a guide for Madrid that is a regular, not a mini Rough Guide. The LP Guide to Madrid seemed pretty mediocre. The stiff covers also made it awkward to use or hold open to a particular page. The information and descriptions were inadequate compared to some other guides. The Eyewitness Guide to Madrid is, I think, the best overall guide to Madrid. (Generally I prefer Eyewitness guides for City's much more than as a guide for an entire country.) The maps are good, the pictures of the food and other items are very helpful. The hotels and restaurant sections were pretty good, but not great. If you are looking for hostels, you will need the LP guide. Eyewitness does not give great historical depth, but it gives you some, probably enough for most tourists. Guide Books are not the best source for detailed historical and cultural information anyway. The Time Out guide was almost like a tourist's yellow pages, primarily a listing of hotels, restaurants, sites, services, etc. It had the best listing of restaurants and hotels and covered all price ranges. It wasn't as good as Eyewitness is describing the things to see and do.I ended up getting the Eyewitness Guide to use while sightseeing, supplemented by the Time Out Guide for picking hotels, restaurants and being able to look up things. Another reviewer recommended this same combination in order to visit Tapas bars. I'm not that much into Tapas, but I still think these two are the best combo. Eyewitness is not perfect, but it's the best one that I saw.Incidentally, the Spain Rough and LP guides Madrid sections do not cover Madrid as well as the Madrid-only guides. You are looking at a 60-page section, compared to the Madrid-only guides of around 300 pages length.

This map was worth over its weight in gold in Madrid. The idea is excellent. The streets are large enough and the laminated paper makes it usable even in the rain and it also can fold in any direction so that you can slip it into your inside pocket while the section your interested in is just a peek away at all times (saves the tourist look)...GENIUS...my friends swept all the bookstores in madrid looking for one just like it . only problem is you get spoiled and wish there was a map like that for every city.

I spent the first week of my vacation on my own in Madrid. Since every street in the Old Town looks the same as every other, good maps are essential. I highly recommend this guidebook for its accurate maps, ease of use, convenient size and beautiful photography.Accurate Maps: Every street was just as pictured, right down to the drawings of suggested sights. Local Madrileños nodded in approval as they shared my guidebook with their friends.Ease of Use: Unlike other bulky travel guides, this slim guidebook is easy to slip into a medium size purse or backpack. The included page-keepers made it easy to go back to the same map again and again. I enjoyed my afternoon as other tourists stood on streetcorners trying to find their way using ordinary maps. Another American tourist preferred my Madrid guidebook to her husband's text-saturated guides.Beautiful photography: It's helpful to see pictures of foods with English descriptions since many restaurants don't have menus in English.The pictures of buildings are placed right with the featured area maps, making a professional guide rather unnecessary. I enjoyed my unhurried stroll the the old town, something I would have been unable to do without such a fantastic guidebook. This guidebook is also a great supplement to guided tours, providing a lasting memory of my travels...all the details we so quickly forget.I must mention the restaurant lists in the back. The restaurant Casa Labra was easy to find, close to my hotel, and within the price range specified. Although the croquetes bacalao were very good, I didn't find the atmosphere of the tapas room to be at all inviting.Overall rating of 5 stars is well-deserved.

This is the book you put in your coat pocket and take with you when you leave the hotel. It has the best maps, the top sights listed and detailed, the right amount of history, the best book. It is also beautifuly done, and is fun to look at for the pictures and maps. If you are visiting Madrid, you are probably also visiting Toledo and Segovia, and this book covers them as well in excellent fashion. I visited that area for 10 days, and this is the book I had on me every day. The book improves the experience of being there.

This is the most entertaining of all guide books on Madrid I have ever read. The accuracy is incredible, it really gave me the feel of the city before i visited. It provided me with the knowledge to explore the sights before I had even reached them. Excellent!!!