Some thoughts about Mr. Steves' largely excellent book. Highly recommended.Pros:
* Mr. Steves provides excellent help in prioritizing your time in Spain and Portugal. I find this activity to be the hardest when planning a trip. How many days in Barcelona, how many in Madrid, etc?
* An incredibly valuable feature of the book, in my opinion, is that Mr. Steves provides a one-page listing of the primary sites in each city, ranking each site from zero to three stars based on how important it is to see each site. While I may not agree on his prioritization, the page makes for a quick checklist while you're walking or waiting for public transportation.
* Mr. Steves is particularly good at recommending out-of-the-way lodging and restaurants that you might not otherwise find in a given place.
* Mr. Steves' book is also very good for budget travelers, providing lodging and dining in every class of service.
Cons:
* As mentioned in several other reviews, the book is laden with historical factual errors. I won't go into that here.
* In a cutesy manner, many of the maps are handwritten and the street names are omitted. Specifically, if you try to drive around Sevilla using only this book, you will live to regret it.
* Much if not most of the visitor information (hours and days of availability) for tourist sites is wrong. I strongly suggest doing what we did: arriving in a particular town the night before you wish to visit its sites, walking around to see the real hours displayed, then planning your itinerary over dinner.
Some other thoughts, not particularly specific to his book but useful for your trip:
* PORK: Spain is completely obsessed with pork. More or less every menu item has pork on it. Even if it says vegetarian and you ask if it's vegetarian and they assure you it's vegetarian, the odds are pretty high that it'll have a six ounce hunk-o-bacon in it. If you are committed not to eat pork for any reason, seriously consider whether it's worth having to cookies out of a bag for the duration of your trip.
* There are department stores called Corte Ingles scattered around every city in Spain. They have grocery stores and everything else you might need. Knowing where they are is very useful on a long trip.
Best of luck!
Lydia
