I have used most of them and In my Experience, Symphony is probably the best right now. Specifically v 2.x + Zend Framework was an overkill. CakePHP and Codeignite was way too simple and not suited for big applications(Just my opinion/experience) Drupal was always under-estimated as a CMS - But it is a good enough framework for almost anything. and it was/is my favourite. I have not used Laravel myself but I have heard only good things about it.

If you are getting started in python, you should start with A Byte of Python. Read here: http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/ If you are looking something more, you can opt for Beginning Python: Using Python 2.6 and Python 3.1 by Wrox .