Survival Guide - Discover Spain: Experience the Best of Spain - page 629

Internet Access

Wi-fi : Increasingly available at most hotels and in some cafes, restaurants and air-
ports; generally (but not always) free. Connection speed often varies from room to
room in hotels, so always ask when you check in. Hotels offering wi-fi are indicated
throughout this topic with an icon ( ). If they instead have a public-access com-

puter terminal, the icon is .

Internet Cafes : Good cybercafes that last the distance are increasingly hard to
find; ask at the local tourist office. Prices per hour range from €1.50 to €3.

Legal Matters
In theory, you are supposed to have your national ID card or passport with you at all
times. If asked for it by the police, you are supposed to be able to produce it on the
spot. In practice it is rarely an issue and many people choose to leave passports in
hotel safes.
The Policía Local or Policía Municipal operates at a local level and deals with
such issues as traffic infringements and minor crime. The Policía Nacional (
091) is the state police force, dealing with major crime and operating primarily in the
cities. The military-linked Guardia Civil (which was created in the 19th century to
deal with banditry) is largely responsible for highway patrols, borders, security, ma-
jor crime and terrorism. Several regions also have their own police forces, such as
the Mossos d'Esquadra in Catalonia and the Ertaintxa in the Basque Country.

Maps

SMALL-SCALE MAPS
Some of the best driving maps for travellers are by Michelin, which produces the
Spain & Portugal map (scale 1:1,000,000) and six 1:400,000 regional maps cover-
ing the whole country. These are all pretty accurate and are updated regularly, even
down to the state of minor country roads. Also good are the GeoCenter maps pub-
lished by Germany's RV Verlag.
Probably the best physical map of Spain is Península Ibérica, Baleares y Canari-
as published by the Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica (CNIG;