Rick Steve's Spain Guide
 

I liked his guides on Florence and Venice, but have heard mixed reviews of his guide for Spain/Portugal.

Can anyone recommend this as a good guide for a first timer to Spain? I'm thinking of getting it as a gift.

I'd certainly recommend it. Although it is lacking in covering some geographical parts of Spain (ie. Galicia and other parts of "Green Spain") it is certainly a great guide to use for a first time trip especially for the larger cities. I use Rick's guide supplemented by others (Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, Frommers, and of course Fodors!). I don't like Rick's maps but he has good hints on hotels, restaurant and general getting around. Although as far as restaurants are concerned I used to use guides and hunt down the restaurants. Often they were closed for business or they had been discovered by every tourist in the city. So I started just wandering a bit from the main tourist areas and would discover my own places.

If you're interested in any specific areas of Spain let me know . I've been to most of the cities he covers and will be glad to let you know how the book worked.

Different books cater to different types of travellers. I'm not Rick Steeves fan.

I've come accross one that nobody mentions but I find pretty good: Open Road.

Interestingly, I've also found Spiral (easy to carry around) and National Geographic quite good.

Just got back from Spain...I liked Eyewitness and Frommer's guidebooks even better than Rick Steves, though I think his are worth while too, but are better for other areas, though his advise on Hotel Cardenal in Toledo and the restaurant La Morilla in Tarifa were excellent (disagree with him on Hotel Europa in Madrid and Cardinal in Barcelona.)

I think the best advise I received was right here in Fodor's chatroom! Do searches on areas you're interested, as well as websites such as okspain.org, red200.com, spainalive.com, aboutspain.net, and post when you have specific questions, and you'll do fine.

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking of getting the guide for my sister who is traveling to Spain in the spring. Of course, I've tried to get her to research here on Fodors, as well, but she doesn't have a whole lot of computer time these days.

You have all given me some other good suggestions to look at, too. Thanks again.