Product Description

Explore every corner of this beautiful Spanish region with the revised fifth edition of the Rough Guide to Andalucía. Let the 24-page, full-colour section inspire you on where to go and what to see, from the stunning White Town of Ronda to the prehistoric site of Los Millares. In addition, there are three, new, 4-page, full-colour inserts: ‘Tapas’, ‘Flamenco’ and ‘Semana Santa’ (Holy Week). The new ‘author picks’ section highlights the regions best hotels and restaurants, plus there are hundreds of listings of all the top bars, clubs, shops and tapas bars, to suit all budgets. The guide takes a detailed look at ‘green’ Andalucía, with extensive coverage of National Parks, Natural Parks and a special section on Andalucía’s flora and fauna. To help you make the most of ‘outdoor’ Andalucía, there is plenty of practical tips and advice on everything from hiking and rock climbing to kite surfing and mountain biking. The guide comes complete with over 55 maps and plans for the whole area.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29964 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 712 pages

Sunday Times, 2 April 2000, London, UK
The best guidebook

The Daily Telegraph, London, UK
The excellent Rough Guide to Andalucia.

Sunday Telegraph, London, UK
The best guidebook.

Customer Reviews

The 6th edition (May 2009) of the Rough Guide to Andalucía: a worthy additon to anyone's bookshelf.
This is a review of the 6th edition (May 2009) of the Rough Guide to Andalucia. This latest edition is an improvement on what was already an excellent guidebook.

The colour section at the front of the book very sensibly focuses on the highlights of the region for those making a brief visit, or are visiting Andalucia for the first time. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, it covers cultural events and pleasures of the table as well as locations. It also includes a useful couple of pages on "When to go", an important consideration for a region with such a range of climatic variations.

This is followed by an invaluable detailed 37-page "Basics" section, covering practicalities such as transport options, accommodation types, food and drink, travelling with children, personal safety and health care.

There then follows the main body of the guide which takes up an astonishing 500 pages, an impressive piece of work that covers all the region's eight provinces in considerable detail, each province prefaced by a few pages of introduction to its highlights. I now live in Andalucia and yet I refer to the guide continually even for the province in which I live. I am constantly astonished to find information on out-of-the-way places that I know and that receive very few foreign visitors. As before, there is ample detail there for those who want to concentrate on the major attractions, as well as a massive amount of information on the lesser-visited parts of the region. This truly is a book for those who enjoy getting off the beaten track, be that in a city like Córdoba or in a rural backwater, as well as meeting the needs of those who want to visit a major attraction such as the Alhambra.

This main body also contains information that (indirectly) addresses an accusation that is often made against guidebooks; that they attract a disproportionate number of visitors to a small number of hotels, bars and restaurants. I'll take Seville as an example of what I mean. There are 46 accommodation recommendations for Seville, grouped by neighbourhood, with something to suit all budgets. There are 33 restaurants and an astonishing 49 tapas bars listed. (These figures far exceed those provided by another well-known guide to the region.) This has two consequences: (a) the owners of the guidebook are not going to be concentrated in a few select locations; (b) there is ample scope for those who want to get away from the well-trodden tourist trail. Each entry has a description, price guide and, in the case of restaurants and tapas bars, specialities.

Throughout the main section there are guided walks through city neighbourhoods, historical accounts and interesting anecdotes. There is even a page dedicated to "Red" Marinaleda, a village in Seville province with a radical town hall and social policies to match, a place little known outside the immediate area. Gibraltar is also covered.

Given the multiplicity of bus companies operating in Andalucia (and the rest of Spain), the guide wisely provides summaries of bus routes, frequency and journey duration. To try to do more would be confusing and would, in any case, be quickly out-of-date. Accommodation is simply price-banded; this is a good idea as accommodation in many places in Andalucia fluctuates widely according to season.

Overall, the writing style is eminently approachable, neither unnecessarily dry or overly academic, nor irritatingly patronising. In short, it's a "good read". One factor often overlooked by readers until it's pointed out to them is the use of colour and mix of font styles and sizes in the text. This makes the guidebook especially user-friendly, something that many of the Rough Guide's competitors have woefully neglected.

Finally, there is an expanded 50-page "Contexts" section that deals with the history of the region; flamenco styles, personalities and recordings and then an extensive list of books for background reading. At the back there is a comprehensive index, with sub-indices for cities and larger towns.

City maps can always be improved upon; finding some way of simplifying the labyrinthine old quarters must be a cartographer's nightmare. However, every city has a tourist office with excellent free maps for visitors. These can be used in conjunction with the Rough Guide's maps that show the sightseeing destinations, hotels, bars and restaurants included in the text.

In summary, I unreservedly recommend this guidebook to anyone with an interest in Andalucia, to a prospective visitor and to someone who wants to buy just one book on the region.

a useful travelling companion!
I used this guide during a recent trip to Andalucia and chose it for the same reason as Sam (see other review). I found it an extremely useful guide for planning an itinerary, and I did not happen upon any major inaccuracies. I guess if you're the kind of person who gets worked up about having to 'waste' an afternoon in Granada (sounds like heaven), or taking a wrong turning on a walk, then you're probably going to be quite hard to please. I took numerous wrong turns and wasted time in some fabulous places, I recommend you buy this book and do the same.

4th Edition already out of date by September 2003
This is the 6th Rough Guide, to various countries, that I've used on a vacation.

The (positive) sarcasm evident in the other books helped me to decide which specific visit to make, especially when time was at a premium. This helpful tool is not overly evident in the 4th edition.

Too many factual problems in a new guide occured (Example Granada . . . .page 533....Bar Ferroviaria closes and does not open, as reported in the book, at 2 pm ......on Plaza Pescedaria, no's 8 and 14 were recommended. One was overly popular, difficult to approach the entrance and the other is now a building site.

The city maps are 'logically' oriented and not "north" (as in most other guides, including the Rough which I've used) making quick use of the map difficult and comparison with other maps virtually impossible.

Insufficient attention is made regarding entry to the main cities:

We wasted valuable time getting to the Alhambra in Granada there is a ring road not well indicated in the guide.

The parking lot (for Gibraltar) in La Linea is a great 'find' but the guide should indicate that it may be reached by following 'Gibraltar' signs, no need to drive all the way through the alleys of La Linea.

The Sevill maps (pages 274/5 and 278) are not easily oriented to each other. In addition, arrival by road is too 'sudden', the 'old city' arrives without any pre-warning of landmarks, making navigation in moving traffic extremely difficult.

Similar comments can be made about Malaga and Almeria, in both cases, appropriate parking near the Alcazars exist, but the Guide did not help us find parking.

I can not comment on the other major cities, as we did not visit them.

As a general rule, the Andalucian inter city roads are very well signposted, but those in the towns and cities, not. I would therefore expect my guide to over compensate for this and give me better data, at least, to reach the first where excellent city/town maps are usually available.

Overall, I like the 'personal' approach of Rough Guides, still evident in the Andalucian 4th edition, but less so than in other guides.

There are many 'tips' which make it a worthy guide.

There is a great deal of logic in the placing of sites. In addition, if my route strays from that logic, the index is detailed enough to redirect me.

Will I buy another Rogh Guide? Only if the maps are north oriented. Too much valuable holiday time was taken from me entering the cities.