Portugal, 5th (Cadogan Guides)

Rating:
Summary: If you are not renting a car....
Review: Travelling through Portugal trying to use this book led to a ridiculous series of misadventures. We had thought about renting a car beforehand, but ended up visiting Coimbra and Lisbon only - making this book completely useless.

The guide's profile of each of these cities (two of the three biggest) was abysmal. The maps had no scale or even north/south orientation, and included only a small section of each city. Also, the location of each place to stay and every other sight was given in address only, rather than as reference points on a map (Such as they do in Lonely Planet). Several of the addresses were not even on the maps provided by the guide, and some were on streets that were too small for the guide to print the street name.

Basically our strategy became to get to the city and go straight to the tourist office. The only time the guide was remotely helpful was in listing a laundry facility located in Lisbon - but again, we had to rely on a tourist office map to find it. This guide was endlessly frustrating, and we constantly had to rely on the help of other travellers/citizens, the ever-useful tourist offices, and our ability to wander endlessly, to find anything and everything from internet cafes to hostels to clubs to good dining spots to fado.

Honestly, by the end of the trip if we'd had a match we'd have burned it. Instead we just threw it away.