I am a solo char. right now ,played the game several times, and can help you with almost any problem, i'll try to answer soon!
-Brainless One

I could really need some help here! I can't seem to enter the city of Baldur's gate - I'm on chapter five but the map doesn't allow me to travel to BG!
There's supposed to be an invisible switch on the elevator after you've flooded the mines which is supposed to trigger the map (i.e. make BG an enterable site) - but I'm afraid I might have been wearing boots of speed and thus not trigger the map) - I've tried going back to the elevator at cloakwood mines and walk around slowly but nothing happens! What can I do????

Aggi, where exactly do you meet your roadblock? Are you stopped halfway across the bridge to BG city, or are you across the bridge and you just can't find the way in?

The trigger in the Cloakwood Mines that starts Chapter 5 lowers the drawbridge that lets you cross all the way over the bridge. If you read the documents in Davaeorn's chests and flooded the Mines, you should be able to cross the bridge. There could be bugs, though.

If you're already on the other side of the bridge, just walk along the wall until you can see open ground on the other side of the wall. Go there, and from there you can walk West into the first map area of BG city. BioWare really should have thought this out more: In order to do what I just told you to do, you have to walk under an archway in the wall--but, due to the angle of the wall, you can't SEE the archway. Many people have trouble finding the entrance for this reason.

Follow the link in my sig and read Chapter 13, for spoiler-free answers to many common problems.