Customer Reviews

Provence

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

 

 

In planning a trip for my wife and I to Provence, I bought several guide books for assistance. This one stood out. The authors have clearly walked the paths, stayed in the lodgings and eaten at many of the resturants they write about. Since they were bound to cover the entire area, it seemed I could tell when they had not actually been there, but these parts were few. Their style gives a really good feeling about a place, and the practical matters of sight seeing, hiking, biking, sleeping, eating and especially resting are well done. Not every place gets a good review; I especially liked the comments on what to miss. I found this all too often lacking in competing guides, that read more like they were edited by the local Chamber of Commerce. Another plus - Cagodan Provence was published this year, making it one of the most current available. My recommendation: If you're going, buy it.

Disclosure: I've never met or heard of the authors or their book before finding it on Amazon.

Having been to Provence about ten times in the last twenty years, I've read plenty of guides, and none have gone as directly to the heart of the matter as this one. There are plenty of posey guides out there, but if you want to know what makes the region tick, warts and all, I recommend Facaros and Pauls. The others seem shallow in comparison. And these guys make me laugh, an added bonus!

I've spent a lot of time with many Provence guidebooks and I recommend this one as one of the best. If you use Rick Steves or Lonely Planet, this is a good counterpoint. I wouldn't use just this guide for lodging or restaurants because the listings aren't extensive enough and the book isn't updated annually but the book has inspirational descriptions of the varied pleasures of Provence. The book does not cover the Côte d'Azur; another Cadogan guide by the same authors does. If I had to use just one book while traveling in Provence I would certainly consider this one.

We loved Lazy Days in Provence, a guidebook to some great, largley off the beaten track, restaurants in Provence. It had great advice and an informal style. We bought this guidebook because two of its authors were also the authors of Lazy Days. The detailed info is accurate but the style is deadly. We left it at home and took Marc Fincham's Insight Guide to Provence instead. Suggest you do the same.

Don't be fooled by the witty writing; the writers are either ill-informed or malicious. 2 of 3 hotels they recommended were downright seedy. The Miramar at La Ciotat (three stars, "a classy, updated old hotel amid pine groves, by the beach") turned out to be a nicotine-saturated, dimly lit dive that charged our credit card before we arrived (we didn't stay). Pine groves? The hotel sits shadeless on an ugly stretch of tarmac. The "pine groves" were a few trees in the parking lot behind the hotel. There are many good guides to Provence; choose another.