Blue Guide Midi-Pyrenees (Blue Guides)

Before I praise this book to the skies, this is what it is not: a motor atlas or local guide, a guide to restaurants and hotels, or a reference book. There are a pair of maps on the end papers, but they are not adequate for navigating, although it does have very useful maps of nine of the towns it covers. It makes no pretense of helping you out with meals or accommodations. The index is cursory, basically listing only places; you cannot, for example, use it to locate monasteries, parish churches, or Renaissance chateaux. It does, however, have at the front a categoric list of outstanding attractions of the region which is inclusive and very informed and thoughtful, and for a tourist this makes up most of the deficiency in the index. (It is not very light reading, either: the tone is very matter of fact and rather dry, and any adjective merits the reader's consideration.)

However, if you are a tourist with back-roads and cultural inclinations, and if you're even thinking you might...Read more