Rick Steves' Spain 2009

Rick Steve's books are all wonderful in my opinion, but this one I especially appreciate, as my little sister has lived in Madrid for about 9 years, & I visit whenever I can. I think Steves hits the nail on head with his focus on how much of your time to spend where, although since I've been able to stay with my sister & her guy, I don't have to be concerned with hotels or hostels. I also have more time to spend, & so go slower than a tour or fast trip would. I do think his picks for where to focus a limited amount of time are on track, however, & his section on Madrid & surrounding day trips, which I am most familiar with, are straight up. I love reading his books, they go down like stories, very easy to read, & you're taking in information without even realizing it.
His description of Madrid's night life is real & surreal & the truth, it is completly strange to be out on the streets & sidewalks at 11:00 PM seeing the crowds of people, not all partier's, but whole...Read more

I bought Spain 2008 for my trip. My main language is Spanish, my second language is English so I was looking for a book in Spanish to guide me into my Spain trip. I look many books in Spanish and English I couldn't find a better explained book than this Spain 2008 by Rick Steves. I just came from my trip and I have to say the book is fantastic!!! it is literally a guide to what to see what not to see and how you can save money, the advices he gives you for each city what to do and see are great, very well explained, simple and easy. Also he explains a small summary of the history around the place you will see. He says where to go and how to go, buses #, timetables and prices. I have to say he was short by 10% on each of prices. I assume it is for the economic crisis Spain is going trough so the buses he said was 1 euro in the book when was 1.10, but that is something Rick couldn't knew off course.
We met some tourist in our first stop, Madrid and see them in the next cities by...Read more

We travel off the beaten path and discovered last month in Spain that many less-traveled areas are not even mentioned. The entire province of Extremadura and all of its cities, many of which are delightful and deeply steeped in history, are missing, as well as much of the western and northern coasts. Contrast that with the amount of detail given about "The Alhambra", a very touristy site. My comments pertain to the 2007 version, which was the most recent one available. However, upon checking the index for the 2009 version I find that it, too, lacks so much.