Best Barcelona Guidebooks

LUXE Barcelona Guide
LUXE Barcelona Guide

Every major guidebook company from Fodor’s to Let’s Go makes at least one Barcelona guidebook.

Most travel publishers also make a book on Spain as a whole, but if you’re only planning on visiting Barcelona, getting a specific guidebook for the city is a good idea. For example, Lonely Planet’s book on Barcelona gives good in-depth coverage of the city center and the surrounding areas.

If you’ll be visiting lots of places in Spain, getting a larger guidebook like The Rough Guide to Spain is a good idea. If you’re handy with scissors, you can cut out the chapters you need and leave the rest of the guidebook at home. Alternatively, you can get the eBook for your reader.

Once you know what type of Spain or Barcelona guidebook you need, shop around for one that fits your travel style. If you’re backpacking, Lonely Planet, Let’s Go, and the Rough Guide are some of the best guidebooks.

If you’re going upscale, look into guides like the Hg2 Barcelona (A Hedonist’s Guide to Barcelona) or the LUXE guide to Barcelona. They offer more high-end suggestions for luxury hotels, fine dining restaurants, and designer shopping.

If you love sightseeing, consider picking up the Eyewitness Travel Guide to Barcelona. With photos and illustrations on every page, the Eyewitness Barcelona guidebook is great for explaining the details of the city’s many historic buildings, museums, and landmarks.

One last tip on finding the best Barcelona guidebooks: check the date the book was published. If it is more than a year old, don’t buy it. Things change so quickly in Barcelona that an old guidebook will be of little use to you now.

W Hotel Barcelona Review

W Hotel Barcelona
Address: Placa de la Rosa dels Vents, 1, Barcelona, Spain
Phone: +34 (93) 295 2800
Web: http://www.starwoodhotels.com

The W Barcelona is one of the hottest properties on the Barcelona hotel scene.

Designed by world-famous but locally-grown architect Ricardo Bofill, the W is at the peak of sleek contemporary design.

The hotel is the perfect place to call home during a visit to the city. With its beachfront location and signature W service, it is one of Barcelona’s most in-demand properties.

The hotel features 26 floors with 473 guest rooms, 67 suites, gourmet restaurants, an Eclipse rooftop bar, a sleek W Living Room, a refreshing WET pool and adjacent terrace, and a top-notch BLISS spa and SWEAT fitness center.

You can book your room at the W hotel in Barcelona online. Rates start at around 250 euros per night.

Trains from Madrid to Lisbon

Taking a train from Madrid to Lisbon is a great way to get from the Spanish capital to the Portuguese capital when you are visiting Europe.

Trains between these cities depart nightly from Madrid’s Chamartin station and arrive at Lisbon’s Oriente and Santa Apolonia stations. They are run by Renfe and CP, the countries’ national rail companies.

Rail services are operated on the Trenhotel Lusitania. Despite the “trenhotel” name, don’t mistake this for a luxury train from Madrid to Lisbon. In reality, it is a standard train with sleeping cars.

There is a Lusitania Trenhotel to Lisbon daily at around 22:00 in the evening. The train travels through Spain and Portugal, arriving at Lisbon Oriente station first and then Lisbon Santa Apolonia station, which is its final stop.

The journey time on this route is 9 hours and 40 minutes, allowing passengers ample time to sleep and have meals. When you travel, keep in mind that there is a one hour time difference between Madrid, which is on CET, and Lisbon, which is on GMT.

Single tickets for the train range in price depending on what class you travel in. Fares start at 60.50 euros for tourist class and go up to 203.50 for private sleeper cabins.