Compass American Guides: Santa Fe, 3rd Edition [Paperback]

Lawrence W. Cheek (Author)

Book Description

Series: Compass American Guides | Publication Date: February 8, 2000

Compass Santa Fe 3rd ed."This guide to Santa Fe is the best, its photos and writing are both so elegant that it's your trip entertainment as well as your guide." -- New York Daily News

Created by local writers and photographers, Compass American Guides are the ultimate insider's guides, providing in-depth coverage of the history, culture and character of America's most spectacular destinations. Covering everything there is to see and do as well as choice lodging and dining, these gorgeous full-color guides are perfect for new and longtime residents as well as vacationers who want a deep understanding of the region they're visiting.

Outstanding color photography, plus a wealth of archival images
Topical essays and literary extracts
Detailed color maps
Great ideas for things to see and do
Capsule reviews of hotels and restaurants

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Compass Santa Fe 3rd ed."This guide to Santa Fe is the best, its photos and writing are both so elegant that it's your trip entertainment as well as your guide." -- New York Daily News

Created by local writers and photographers, Compass American Guides are the ultimate insider's guides, providing in-depth coverage of the history, culture and character of America's most spectacular destinations. Covering everything there is to see and do as well as choice lodging and dining, these gorgeous full-color guides are perfect for new and longtime residents as well as vacationers who want a deep understanding of the region they're visiting.

Outstanding color photography, plus a wealth of archival images
Topical essays and literary extracts
Detailed color maps
Great ideas for things to see and do
Capsule reviews of hotels and restaurants

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Santa Fe * Fanta Se

This is not a conventional guidebook to Santa Fe. This is the work of a visiting journalist who has had a 20-year-long relationship with her, flitting among love, fascination, amazement, aggravation, and exasperation. This is a guidebook in which no subject is out of bounds, one in which Santa Feans talk to each other -- and to me, about their lives and their histories and their dreams.

La Villa de Santa Feé (its original Spanish name), founded in 1607, claims more history, more art, and more multicultural energy than any other city in America with the possible exception of New York, which is more than 100 times Santa Fe's size. Santa Fe sports an unusual climate: two basic seasons, summer and winter, neither too extreme, with an interlude of autumn color that almost rivals New England's. It is the most concentrated art center in the world. In the decades past, Santa Fe style (for better or worse) captured the imagination of the whole nation, inspiring crafts, furniture, and architecture designed in an "antiqued" eighteenth-century Spanish Colonial dress. It is one of the culinary capitals of America, perhaps the only one save New Orleans that has evolved a broad and distinctive regional menu of its own.

This old, uneven brown town is ineffably alluring. Sweep into Santa Fe on I-25 from Albuquerque and you'll see the last city in North America that truly embraces its natural environment.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Compass America Guides; 3 edition (February 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679002863
• ISBN-13: 978-0679002864
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,354,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book - history, where to eat, what to see, tips, June 11, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Compass American Guides : Santa Fe (Paperback)

We just got back from Santa Fe. This book was wonderful! It has history, what to see (museums, ruins, architecture), where to eat (an interesting list -- we didn't particularly use it because we had personal referrals). It had great tips -- like buy the 5-museum pass for slightly more than a one-museum, one-day pass. I was very pleased I'd read it BEFORE I went and it was very useful while we were there.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most infomative travel guide we found on Santa Fe!, April 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Compass American Guides : Santa Fe (Paperback)

We found this book to be very, very informative on where to go in Santa Fe as well as fun side trips complete with a "how to find the onion lady" on the road from Taos. Fabulous photography. Great historical and cultural detail as well. Highly recommend the Compass American Guides.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very attractive guidebook, April 27, 2005

By 

Smallchief - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Compass American Guides : Santa Fe (Paperback)

I used this guide for a recent visit to Santa Fe, the most interesting and artsy/craftsy city of 60,000 people in the U.S. The photography and the maps in the guide are outstanding. Hotels and restaurants are described in helpful and interesting detail. The guide covers not only Santa Fe but also a good sized chunk of surrounding territory, including Taos, smaller and even more literary and artistic than Santa Fe; the atomic city of Los Alamos; scenic, old Hispanic mountain towns; and even Chaco Canyon, the prehistoric ruin hidden in the desert now inhabited by the Navajo.

Nearby Albuquerque, however, is not covered in the book -- an omission that probably should be remedied as Albuquerque has attractions of its own -- excellent museums and a walk through the bosques of the Rio Grande, for example. Nor did I find directions to the grave of author D.H. Lawrence near Taos so I made my way there unguided. Another criticism is that the author's brief essays about Chaco Canyon and Taos' most famous resident, Kit Carson, were eccentric and perhaps not to the point.

The Indian/Hispanic/Anglo culture of New Mexico is probably the most unique and colorful regional culture of the United States and is celebrated in enough art galleries and literature to last a lifetime. My favorite places to visit: a tie between the Bradbury Museum of Science in Los Alamos, which has a mock-up of the first atomic bomb, and remote Chaco Canyon. All in all, this is an attractive and reliable guide to the attractions of Santa Fe and its region.

Smallchief