Product Description

Make the most of your time with Rough Guide DIRECTIONS Barcelona. Slim, stylish and pocketable, the guide is an up-to-date, authoritative and user-friendly companion to one of Europe’s most energetic cities. Full-colour and richly illustrated throughout, the guide highlights the best the area has on offer from outrageous architecture to the vibrant cultural scene – giving you inspiration for things to do, 24 hours a day. You’ll find accurate information on the cities top attractions from Picasso’s earliest works to Gaudi’s famous park, as well as the regions most child-friendly attractions. There’s revised accounts of all the museums and galleries that have undergone refurbishment and detailed coverage of the latest city areas to undergo regeneration, including Glòries Poble Nou and Diagonal Mar. The guide features up-to-date listings of all the hottest new places to stay, eat, drink, club and shop to suit all budgets, and comes complete with comprehensive maps to help you find your way around

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #315482 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Jules Brown is co-author of Rough Guides to England, Scandinavia, Sicily, Barcelona and Washington DC

Customer Reviews

Perfect for long weekends
The Rough Guides that I've bought in the past have mainly been used to plan ahead. The Directions series is, as far as I can tell, is designed to be much more hands on to use once you get to your destination.

The guide also seems to be aimed less at backpackers, and more at travellers who might still be young, or young at heart, but will pay to stay in reasonable comfort. Despite a handy Barcelona on a budget page, the guide isn't all about getting things on the cheap.

My wife and myself were in Barcelona for a long weekend, and Directions Barcelona, was perfect in guiding us through the major sights. The front of the book, which is illustrated with plenty of photographs, takes you through the highlights. This includes a list of the 'big six' things to see (useful if you are short on time), places to stay and eat, cafes and museums and galleries.

Chapters in the rest of the guide were split according to area of Barcelona and the maps were by and large easy to read. The one exception were the maps around the Parc Guell (one of the guide's 'big six'), which were a little sparse.

Finally, Directions Barcelona comes with a CD, which has the guide in ebook format.

All in all, I found Directions Barcelona to be user friendly, informative, accurate and importantly, completely up to date. I'd have no hesitation in recommending it for your next Barcelona trip.

Fits into your back pocket - literally
Directions guides are slim and pocketable (literally - I kept mine in the back pocket of my jeans as I was walking around - they are that small), and therefore ideal for browsing on the move.

The information is basic and to the point. The book spends as much time on cafes, restaurants and bars as it does on the sights. If you are spending more than a long weekend in Barcelona it is a good idea to combine this with another guide, such as the more detailed and pictorial DK guide. The Directions guide is short on pictures and doesn't cover all of the minor sites.

The `Best of Barcelona' (I'm paraphrasing) section at the beginning is a particularly good feature (and the one area of the book rich in colour and pictures). This section lists the very best Barcelona has to offer in categories such as parks, churches, specialist museums and cafes. The `Big Six' is the best of these lists, covering Barcelona's top six attractions (Sagrada Familia, La Seu, Parc Guell, the Ramblas, the Picasso Museum and the National Gallery up on Muntjuic) and good for getting your bearings.

I can't see much use in the CD at the back, which holds the whole book on PDF files.

My trip was this year, so I was using this slightly out of date version (2005), and occasionally it showed (Amaya had stopped doing tapas and it meant a really long walk down the Ramblas for nothing!) - still, that's my fault.

Really handy!
A great guide to take abroad, we used this all of the time. The maps were great and easy to follow.

My only complaint is the restaurant reviews a) were no always accuarte and b) it was hard to locate them (perhaps this is more to do with the shop frontage not being obvious!)!