Michelin Green Guide Provence

As always, these travel guides are always up to date and have excellent recommendations for international travel. I rate this guide as A+++++.

Of four guide books I read before planning a two-week trip to Provence, the Michelin book was the best. It helped in selecting the home base (Avignon) and was crucial in planning the daily touring. Thanks to this book we had a wonderful time.

Michelin Green Guide: Provence (Michelin Green Guides) Anyone traveling to Provence should purchase ths guide with one caveat. The guide has its own interpretation of where the Provence is. Most Provence guides include the Cote d'Azur and the Gorge de Verdon. This guide does not, The tours shown on the back cover are not well described in the text. One is better advised to use the tour explanations that correspond to the tours indictated in the front cover map.

Having just returned form a brief sojourn outside of Avignon(one of numerous visits over the years to the South of France) I found the Green Guide as indispensable as ever.These oddly shaped, distinctive volumes dispel whatever remains of Peter Mayle's cute and condescending presentation of the region. Here instead is an ancient and noble land of sunlight and wind, which has created strangely shaped stones and mountains surrounding ancient olive groves,endless vineyards, wide rivers, and more Roman remains than can be found in Rome. The magical Middle Ages are here, too, as well as the quintessential visions of Cezanne, the native son, and Van Gogh, the wandering Dutchman. As your eyes do the looking, this highly useful green book will filll you in with all the information you will need on plants, stones (manbuilt and otherwise) weather,rivers, geology, and above all history. What you see around you is explicated with an appropriate Gallic resserve, accuracy and precision, so that you can meditate on the land without any editorial interference. The format of the Green Guides is unique, reflecting their self-confidence that, like Popeye, and all unique creations, they are what they are.And the small maps included in the descriptions of many of the most important sites are, as befitting a maker of tires and maps, perfect. If you love France, you will love this book and all the others defining that land for travelers from near and far.

I think you have to have a copy of the Green Guide in order to travel in Provence -- every tourist I saw on a recent trip had a copy. The reason for it is that the Michelin guides contain more detailed cultural and historical information, and better maps, than any other guides. They are a little dry though, so I really enjoyed mixing the Michelin with the guides from Cadogan. The two provide a good mix of serious and irreverent, while both ensure that you get to the really fascinating sites.