Customer Reviews

Drive Around Provence & the Cote d'Azur: Your guide to great drives (Drive Around - Thomas Cook)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is worth the price and the last-minute shipping that we needed to get it to us before our flight to France. We referred to it constantly. We used it to select which drives to take on a given day, and it is of great value here. Readers may disagree with some of the star-ratings on certain sites (and sights), but this is to be expected and one should calibrate oneself against the views of the author. For example, we would rate Aix-en-Provence lower, Nimes lower, and the upper Vaucluse in general higher. Once you see where your tastes lie (Roman ruins more interesting than Vacqueyras tasting?) then you will know how to use the book to its best advantage. Highly recommended.

The content reflected a great appreciation of this part of France, and the general route information very useful, photos attractive and representational, but I found the format somewhat awkward. Some of the sidebar infomation would have better been included in the text, e.g. specific driving instructions within towns. The maps were weakest feature; some of the route maps were so cluttered that I needed a detailed road map to make sense of the proposed route.

If your renting a car and traveling this book really helped. It gives you for example the parking places in Aix and roads to use-its right on. The sites it picked are well thought out and "no-nonsense".
I think its worth the weight during the trip we took.

It turns to be the best guide book for Provence and the Cote d'Azur if I compare with other books I bought for the same topic. It covers all coners of Provence and all important cities, villages are ranked so it is easier to me to decide where to go and which places to visit. The suggested route for drivers(of course it can be also for other kind of backpackers) are supper useful and I will definitely use it for my main guide book during my visit in Provence.

However, the map in the book is not easy to read because the alphabets printed are too big and the map is just full of all kinds of ABCDs. It will be perfect if can improve the map.

Highly recommended if you are planning go there with a car.

As I have not yet had a chance to use this book as it was intended this review will be somewhat useless. But upon reading through and choosing the routes I would like to take later in the year it has been very beneficial especially after purchase of a map of the area also