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Rating: 
Summary: Lightweight guide written by Pyrenees experts
Review: This is a light-weight, ... guide. It's authored by two experienced travel writers who actually live in southwest France. ...The authors pack in a lot of information on the region's culture and history into the first part of the book, including a section on Pyrenean romanticism! The book then moves from west to east, starting in the Gascon Landes, the Gers, the French Basque Country, Bearn, and the High Pyrenees, and ending up in the Ariege, Andorra, and the Eastern Pyrenees. Like I said, the book is light-weight, but you could easily photocopy the parts you're interested in or cut out the pages you don't need. It gets in-depth but isn't flooded with so much detail that you can't digest it (even though it must cover EVERY Romanesque church between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean).Some other strengths: two sections on Gascony, a region tourists often overlook; a gorgeous photo essay helpful if you're short on time and don't know what you want to see; basic maps of all the areas covered (you'll still want to buy some bigger ones); and a glossary of local terms (like "neste" or "pech" -- a river and a hill, something most French probably don't know.) One weakness is the section on the eastern Pyrenees, which is just too short. This is a good guide, but if you're planning to do any serious trekking on foot, get the exhaustive "Rough Guide to the Pyrenees" or material published by Pyrenean hiking clubs. The Rough Guide's focus is on the outdoors and it has detailed descriptions of trails in the mountains and foothills. Like the Cadogan guide, it also tackles places that aren't quite so "rough" (cities, towns, pilgrimage sites), yet unlike Cadogan, it spans the Pyrenees and includes the Spanish sector. Depending on your travel plans, you can't go wrong with either guide.
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