Product Description

Offers information with sections on outdoor activities, architecture and food and drink. This book provides coverage of Andalucia's hot spots - Seville, Granada, Cordoba and the Costa del Sol. It features theme-based itineraries like tapas, sherry, flamenco and architecture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15423 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 488 pages

Customer Reviews

Essential Reading
This book is essential reading for travellers to this part of Spain. The book's recommendations can be trusted and, whilst the information is thorough it isn't difficult to get to the more important parts quickly.

We used it to visit Seville, Granada, Malaga and Antequera in September 2003 and found it brilliant. It's written in an unfussy way, in plain English and by people who know what is worthwhile and what isn't.

Two important things to remember.

Buy the book well before you travel. (We bought it in the airport after we had booked some of our accommodation and so wasted hours looking at the 'net for stuff much more clearly detailed in the book).

The maps in the book are pretty sketchy and quite small. If you're travelling around, don't rely solely on these maps (and LP advises, in the book, which maps to buy).

Overall, there isn't a better guide-book that I've found.

Brilliant as always!
I've just spent the last 2 weeks travelling around Andalucia with just my Lonely Planet and my rucksack. The Lonely Planet information was spot on nearly every time. Price information was very accurate. I only encountered 1 or 2 hotels whose prices were slightly higher than listed in the guidebook (probably because its now the high season). The information on the bullfighting and the Flamenco dancing was very helpful and explained a lot of what I was seeing! All bus departure times and prices were correct, as were the bus stop locations! A few tourist sites had raised their prices slightly....but that is always expected and never proved a problem. It was definitely worth buying this guide and I would highly recommend it.

A Qualified Recommendation


Despite an unusually high number of flaws, this is nevertheless a book that will help you get the most out of your time in Andalucia.

Perhaps I just expect too much of Lonely Planet (LP), but it's their own fault. They've stood by me so many times in so many different places in the past that I was beginning to take everything they told me as The Only Advice In Town. So when I arrived in Seville I quickly got into the LP groove and hit La Bella Estrella, a "jazz bar".

Well, perhaps I'd arrived the day they buried the proprietor, but there was no jazz going on there, so off I went to Naima Café Jazz, happily only about five doors away down Calle Trajan. A bit better, but still not the place I expected based on LP's description. I reckon a good-sized drum kit would have excluded any customers, so how they have live music in there I'm not sure, but at least they were playing some nice sounds, and they pay homage to the greats (Trane, of course, Miles, etc), though also not so greats (GURU? Gimme a break! This has to be Sevillano humour) in pictures on the wall. LP's much-vaunted "friendly staff" at Naima had either gone home or gone AWOL, shouting into a mobile on the steps outside, ignoring the stream of customers entering and then leaving in disgust. In fairness, the guy's as nice as pie when he returns to take my money, and his mate a couple of nights later is all attention, and merits a tip. Still no live music, but this is all the same a cool place to hang out to just chill and have a couple of cervezas. LP just need to make that clear.

So across the road diagonally to the Alameda de Hercules (where you can see LP's point about the boho crowd) and the newly opened Diablito. So it's not in LP, and nor is the makeover currently under way in the Alameda. Nice food, rubbish busker, who luckily stays no more than ten minutes, gets no tips, and splits.

This is something else not in LP: a warning of the constant stream of panhandlers in attendance should you dine al fresco. At a restaurant opposite the cathedral characterised only by lousy service and horrendous self-regard, the bums were apparently queuing round the corner. One of them stood for all of thirty seconds and embarked on a travesty of a flamenco chant, received no tips, and left. Two minutes later he strolls by with wife in tow and shopping in hand.

Next day, off I go looking for the nearest flamenco, at Sol Café Cantante. It's now a theatre called Sala O Cero. No flamenco apparent. I defy LP and book up for a tourist trap (LP can get really inverted snob on you when they want to), recommended by the friendly hotel staff at Hotel Cervantes (a Best Western, so no mention in LP), called Tablao El Arenal, which doesn't merit a listing in LP but is excellent, with all the "duende" (spirit) they describe. Totally spellbinding. And there are plenty of Spanish suckers in there too, so I feel happy it's an equal opportunities "con".

Talking of cons, many Spanish (not just Sevillano) shopkeepers are so paranoid about credit card fraud they ask for ID, so if you're a Brit you'll need a driving licence or passport. Some shops are catching up on chip and pin, but even El Corte Ingles hasn't at time of writing. Again, LP don't seem to have this down.

In most other respects though it's spot on. The Giralda is amazing, the Alcazar awesome, the Plaza de España kind of gaudy and breathtaking in its pretensions but well worth the visit just for the scale of its adventure. LP also brings to your attention the Tobacco Factory and explains the contrast between the ornate renaissance end of the ayuntamiento and its plain 19th century extension.

It mentions the several bridges over the Guadalquivir, though it fails to mention the diversity of their design. It gets the maritime museum at the Torre D'Oro, but omits to mention the boat tours down the Guadalquivir that start from there.

There are interesting little asides like the origin of the chess term "checkmate" (Arabic sheikh, Spanish matar, to kill, apparently). Notes on the architecture which are more than enough for a casual observer such as me. Probably the best notes on wildlife I've read in an LP (including the local names, which is nice). The history of flamenco, kind of compensating for the duff advice on where to go see it. You are enjoying the place before you even arrive, but as reading the book post-dated my first visit, it also helped me appreciate places I'd already been a little more, such as Ronda.

It also helped me choose a couple of out-of-town excursions, such as a visit to Cordoba (the heads-up on the fast AVE trains helps; so does the description of the Mezquita).

Sometimes the writing suffers from sketchy directions, such as those to the visitor centre for Doñana at La Pueblo del Rio. The road number also seems to have changed, but that's also something the Rough Guide Map misses.

Oh, and Seville is just about to get a brand new tram system.

Time and Seville have not, it seems, been kind to LP. Even though my copy is from as recent as 2006, and I was in Seville in July 2007, the march of time is already demanding a new edition.

However, with some qualification, this book is still worth having as a useful basis for your trip. Just don't believe everything you read!