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Rating:  Summary: Concise, organized and comprehensive Review: If you're traveling to Andalucia, Spain this is the book to take along. I reviewed Eyewitness Travel Guide (both Spain and Andalucia), Fodor, Frommer, Cordovon, and others. Lonely Planet has outstanding city maps and lots of them. It has built in "tabs" of the provinces, e..g. Cadiz, Sevilla, city guide maps with numbered legends on food, lodging and sights. The book is jam packed with useful information, things to buy, walking tours, practical information. The Lonely Planet guide has one two page color map, and some scattered color pictures, augmented with frequent and helpful black and white artwork. This book was recommended by a Spanish website. Comparison to other guide books: The Eyewitness guides had much more color. Some had color photos, some not at all. Cordovon had bigger type, but much less information, and poorer artwork. Both Fodor and Frommer have full size maps with their main book on Spain. If you want an additional map, go with Michelin 446 available at Amazon.com or the more detailed EuroAtlas Spain Portugal by American Map--about 300 pages, including some cities. The Lonely Planet book, comes with a colored map and many supplements. A separate map is an option, not a necessity.
Rating:  Summary: Concise, organized and comprehensive Review: If you're traveling to Andalucia, Spain this is the book to take along. I reviewed Eyewitness Travel Guide (both Spain and Andalucia), Fodor, Frommer, Cordovon, and others. Lonely Planet has outstanding city maps and lots of them. It has built in "tabs" of the provinces, e..g. Cadiz, Sevilla, city guide maps with numbered legends on food, lodging and sights. The book is jam packed with useful information, things to buy, walking tours, practical information. The Lonely Planet guide has one two page color map, and some scattered color pictures, augmented with frequent and helpful black and white artwork. This book was recommended by a Spanish website. Comparison to other guide books: The Eyewitness guides had much more color. Some had color photos, some not at all. Cordovon had bigger type, but much less information, and poorer artwork. Both Fodor and Frommer have full size maps with their main book on Spain. If you want an additional map, go with Michelin 446 available at Amazon.com or the more detailed EuroAtlas Spain Portugal by American Map--about 300 pages, including some cities. The Lonely Planet book, comes with a colored map and many supplements. A separate map is an option, not a necessity.
Rating:  Summary: Not up to traditional Lonely Planet standards Review: Lonely Planet Andalucia is clearly inferior to Rough Guide Andalucia and below the standards I have come to expect from Lonely Planet. I found repeatedly that the author(s) appear morei interested in cutesy writing style than in incisive fieldwork and allowed their infatuation with their glib comments to gloss over their lack of good travel writing and description. The guides to eating are almost useless. For those who think otherwise, check the section Where to Eat in Seville. For those who make the mistake of buying the book, I suggest you don't even bother with the reviews of eating places. I decided to leave my Lonely Planet Andalucia in Seville and brought my Rough Guide home with me. The series editors need to clamp down on the writing style of the individual volumes and force them to write for the traveler,not for themselves.
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