Customer Reviews

Frommer's Paris 2010 (Frommer's Color Complete)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Strap on the reading glasses, sorry this is a long review. I happen to love Paris and France. I lived there for two years long ago, and have visited many times. This past summer, 2009, we vacationed in Paris. I have opinions about Frommer's guide.

The Reader's Digest version - this is an excellent guide to Paris. It is probably one of the best written I've seen in a very long time. It is not as beautiful as the Paris (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE); there are few guide books as beautiful as this one. It's not as American as Rick Steves, who does write very practical guide books. It's not on the cheap side like Lonely Planet. To me, this book hits a sweet spot, includes luxury, middle of the road, and inexpensive. If there was one criticism, the photography / images are not nearly as beautiful as I'd like. Some of the page layouts are not super appealing.

It is really difficult to write a good guide book. There is so much information available on the internet that some would wonder, why do I even need a guide book? To me, this guide book represented a starting point. It discussed visiting the city, and pointed toward choices you might want to make. Helped narrow the infinite information that can be found on websites.

OK, buckle up, strap on the glasses. My biased view of this guide book, along with some of my personal advice about Paris, a city I love dearly.

Introduction to Paris, the first three chapters, balance the beauty of the city, the cautionary tales of visiting a huge city, and practical advice. It's some of the best balanced description of Paris I have ever read - I got the impression that Hemingway could be around every corner, but yet this is a city like any other, it has crime and problems; the travel needs to be aware and careful.

Darn Frommer's, some of my favorite quiet locations, nearly secret areas are listed. If too many people follow this advice, those places will lose their charm.

Chapter 4 describes some excellent itineraries that can be accomplished in one day each. To really do everything on these itineraries, you'll have to be really fit, the walks are very long and cover a ton of territory. The first 1 day, if you had only one day in Paris, this would be the one to see the most. The hard part of this visit is seeing the Louvre - there is no choice but to arrive before opening at 9AM. Unfortunately this makes for a fair amount of doubling back on the walk. Skip the Louvre inside, start at Place L'Etoile or the top of the Champs Elysee, and the itinerary makes total sense - actually finishing with dinner at Place des Vosages. The other itineraries are wonderful, and can be taken a piece at a time. Versailles is a tough visit, you have to count a fair amount of time to get there, and the gardens are huge. You could easily spend a whole day there. Frommer's itinerary that day includes 6 more stops. Better be really healthy for these three days.

Chapter 5 on accomodations - Frommer does an excellent job here describing hotels. There's an excellent discussion regarding where to stay - this a critical choice, so much of what you experience in Paris will be based on entering and leaving your hotel. Remember every day you are in Paris, you'll see this neighborhood several times. You might not stay in your room much, but you will see this neighborhood a lot. Choose wisely. I'm familiar with a few of the hotels listed and the descriptions are generally good. Use Frommer's to whet your appetite, then back your choice up with websites. You may find that spending more money to be in an area more to your liking will be money very well spent.

Restaurants - an excellent discussion of French cuisine, and eating habits (hours, what courses come when, and what they are called). I think you will be very surprised at this discussion, they do an excellent job describing French food - it is incredibly varied. As in the US, the food in New Orleans is very different from Texas from the East Coast, from the West Coast. Well the same type of regional influences exist in France. You'll want a bit of education to orient yourself. There is a brief section on, 'Can you eat badly in Paris?' The answer is emphatic yes - but they describe how to minimize the chances of that bad event. An odd omission for eating, Galaries Lafayette. There is one massive floor dedicated to food, the type you can take home and cook; and the prepared type that you can eat there at small tables. It's a bit like an American food court, but at a whole different level of quality. And it's cheap to boot.

Chapters 7 and 8 are really the heart of this book, the monuments, museums, and walking around Paris. The advice is excellent. The descriptions are spot on. Everything they wrote about in glowing language is wonderful. This advice can be followed almost blindly. If it sounds interesting to you from the description, it will likely be wonderful to visit. The walking tours are just about perfect. The three, plus the three earlier, 'if you have one day in Paris' tours will show you some of the best of Paris. Each has their specific flavor. The Montmartre is a bit on the night life side of Paris. The Quartier Latin is more leisurely and people watching oriented. The Marais is a view to a changing modernizing Paris - huge contrasts, and very relaxing walk. I'm fairly familiar with all these walks, and they are excellent recommendations.

Chapter 9 covers shopping. There is absolutely no debate, Paris is a city worth window shopping and spending time inside stores. Frommer's hits the high points, and generally gets this right. I'd like to add that Le Carrousel du Louvre is billed as a mall - sorry that's really wrong. There's nice stores here, the Virgin store is OK, but mall is a real misnomer. There's some shops here, but nothing to spend hours looking. You will be much better off on the Champs Elysee at that Virgin store, or Galleries Lafayteet / Au Printemps. If you want a real mall, you will have to exit the city and go to Velizy 2 (2, Avenue de l'Europe, 78140 Vélizy-Villacoublayư) - that is a real French mall.
Some advice for men on shopping - I love tools and hardware. BHV, a huge multi level store across from Hotel de Ville, has a basement full of the coolest tools, screws, wood... all those things that you'd never see as a tourist (electrical wiring and conduit is totally different there). The nice part, the rest of the store has clothes, perfume, and furniture - you can always meet your partner later on. Two huge recommendations on food - Fauchon and Hediard (they are right next to each other at Place de Madeleine. This is catering at it's highest.

Chapter 10 on night life. Well Paris sort of wakes up at 10PM. Walking outside is fabulous. Frommer's lists a decent number of clubs and bars. They also include information (and this is peppered throughout the book) about gay and lesbian locations. The descriptions are good. Double up with research on the internet. Paris has a lot of concerts, many American musicians tour and might show up at much smaller venues than in the US. Pariscope will usually list these. And the range Frommer's covers is from Opera all the way to tiny clubs.

Chapter 11, the last visiting chapter, is short trips outside of Paris. Of course Versailles is covered in great detail. Focus is on the gardens where it belongs. And Hells Kitchen fans can eat at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. The other destinations: Rambouillet, Fontainbleau, Chartres (if Catholic, an excellent place to attend church), Giverny, and a very good description of Disneyland Paris.

There are the perfuntory phrases, and fast facts chapters. Nothing amazing here.

The book includes a map of Paris. This is one of the strangest, most ill conceived maps I've ever seen. The map is bound into the book. You actually have to cut it out with scissors or a knife. Once out, it is a very poor map of Paris printed on heavy paper stock (that's nice), but is just a small portion of the city. You would be very hard pressed to navigate Paris with this map. A free map from a hotel is better. If you love maps as much as I do, there is a burgundy book about 2 inches thick that has every single street in Paris, along with a huge fold out of the entire city. Buy that map at a store in Paris. This laminated map is a better choice than the map in this book (Streetwise Paris Laminated City Center Street Map). This is a better alternative with most of the detail (Michelin Paris Pocket Atlas Map No. 11 (Michelin Maps & Atlases)).


Some advice that I might not agree with.
Cell phone use. They do warn that a US phone Roaming in Europe can be very expensive (upwards of $1 per minute no matter where you are calling). But they leave off the iPhone / data usage issue (many AT&T customers coming home to thousands in data bills) and the option of buying a SIM card in France (your phone will have to be unlocked before leaving the US, every phone except an iPhone will be unlocked by your carrier for free).

There really wasn't a discussion, even brief about wine. Most Americans tend to think mostly of the grape first, and then the growing region; 'I love a Cabernet from Napa.' This does not translate at all in France. Wine is first thought of by growing region and almost as a side note the grape. Where we grow up thinking grape, Merlot, fruity, light, and then sometimes the region. The French think of the region first, Beaujoulias, fruity, light wine, and then sometimes the grape. So asking for a Merlot in a restaurant might not be well received, or undertsood. Granted, Frommer's can't be everything for everyone. I would have thought a wine discussion would be helpful.

The Eiffel tower discussion is decent - yes approach it from afar and slowly, it is gorgeous seen this way. But they really get the amount of time to actually go to the top of this structure very very wrong. This can be a three hour ordeal. And it is not like Disney with neat lines and entertainment along the way. No it is cramped beyond imagination, not air conditioned, and the lines inside and outside can be horrible. My best advice to you, skip going up the tour, the area around it is infinitely more interesting. If you insist, only go to the first level. The view is not that different at the top, and you will shave at least 1 hour of the visit. Notre Dame is a much more beautiful view of the city.

On shopping, the flagship Adidas and other sporting goods stores weren't mentioned. Be very careful in these stores. Most of what is obscenely expensive there is 100% easily available on line in the US for significantly less. That is true for an amazing number of things in France. You can very easily overpay.

There just has to be a better way. That's what I kept thinking as I went through this guide to Paris. There has to be a better guidebook than this for the most delightful city on earth. Representing the dying genre of printed trip planners (even Fodor's has swtiched focus to their website, since a lot of us do all booking and planning online) Frommer's Paris 2010 guide is dull, unimaginative and occasional downright misleading (I've stayed at Familia-Hotel and I would not describe the owners as "dynamic"). If you only buy one guidebook, this should not be it.

Annoyances in this guide include an bland history of France (why not a guide to getting along with the French instead?), warnings that are too soft (a single line about taxi scams, while personal experience will teach you that unless you know exactly where you are going and a good idea of how you should get there Paris taxis should be avoided at all costs) and a uninspired list of lodgings. Paris has never been cheap, but the current dollar situation has made even a bare-bones hotel the price of a four star here. Yet you can get a studio in a perfect location for well under $100 a day and a bigger apartment runs just a little more. Frommer's only gives a few paragraphs to this method, but for those staying a week or more this is a steal and I wish more pages had been devoted to it. When economic times change guide books should change with them.

There's a couple of good things here--the Day Trips section is solid and the color photos spread throughout the guide are a much needed update. Overall though, this is strictly a book to thumb-through rather than a must-have. I've been to Paris a couple of times and I'm in no way an expert, but even if it was my first time I would find this guide lacking and I certainly find it lacking at this stage. The odd thing is right now I am using Frommer's Las Vegas guide to plan a trip to Nevada, and that guide is world's better than this one. Despite what they claim, it just doesn't feel like the Paris guide was written by locals. It feels like it was written by yuppies with cash to burn who love to stay at the Hilton. For fellow yuppies, this guide rates an A. For everyone else, especially those watching their wallet:

GRADE: C+/B-

This is the best general-purpose, English-language guide with annual updates for the business traveler or short-term resident (such as a student). For a vacation, an American will do better with Fodor's Paris (for first-timers), Michelin Green (for experienced Parisian visitors) or Rick Steves' Paris 2010 (for experienced travelers on their first trip to Paris).

This book is bulkier than the others, and not as well-organized for finding things on the fly. It's a book you can spend some time reading before the trip, and keep in your hotel room or apartment for referral during the trip. It is more comprehensive than the others, it doesn't cover only hotels, restaurants, sights and shopping.

The information is accurate and up-to-date, with not a lot of opinion, and certainly no surprising opinion.

This is jam-packed guide of beautiful Paris, with a total of 424 colorful pages, and a bonus foldout map in the back of the guide. The guide includes a number of maps within, for example, a map of Left Bank when going through the area. Also included are a number of "utility" items, such as common phrases, brief history of France, a map of the Paris Metro on the inside-back-cover, and things like that.

There is a total of 13 chapters, including dining, shopping, nightlife, strolling, accommodations, side trips, exploring the City of Light. The guide also tries to help with the planning ahead before you actually get there which is one of the secrets of traveling!

But approach with caution! This guide will make you want to visit Paris ASAP :)

"Some establishments in France might not accept your credit card unless you have a computer chip imbedded in it." ~ pg. 72

There are two books I'd recommend before taking a trip to Paris and this is one of them. The other book is Paris (DK EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE). The DK guide is superior as far as pictures go but I liked the "Where to Dine" section better in the Frommer's guide. This book has interesting facts sprinkled throughout. You will read about the world's first movie being shown in Paris on December 28, 1895. There is also some information about Hemingway and lots of other famous people and where they ate when visiting Paris. There is a section on movies that gave me some ideas for what to watch while at home.

I wish I'd had this book the first time I went to Paris because it has some good walking tours in it. I took a weekend tour to Paris so reading this book showed me what I missed. I would still take a tour the first time because it is less complicated and you get to see all the main sites in a short amount of time. I think a week in Paris would have been better and with this book you can plan out your days more easily. This guide also comes with a pullout map of Paris.

Some of the highlights in this book include day trips. You probably don't want to miss seeing the Chateau de Versailles or Disneyland Paris. You have to visit Paris once in your life it is an amazing place to visit. So I'd suggest getting the DK book and this book to really plan out your trip effectively.

~The Rebecca Review

Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:
***** Highly recommended with warm fuzzies!

Although I would definitely not call this the singular complete guide to the "City of Light", it is a very well-written and organized guide to one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world. It is great to see that both Frommer's and Fodor's have been increasingly adding more and more color photos to their travel guides. Previously, for years, the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides and Apa Insight Guides had more color photos in their books, but I felt that they sometimes had too many photos at the expense of informative text. Frommer's and Fodor's use fewer color photos and more text on their pages.

I always love travel guides that cover both the popular tourist destinations as well as the "off the beaten path" secret discoveries that only the locals know, along with those quirky spots that add to a city's charm and character, and this guide book does not disappoint. The book's suggested itineraries, hotel descriptions, and 50+ pages entirely devoted to restaurants and food (yes!!!) are spot on and loaded with ideas.

Like London, Paris is a city that was meant for exploring by foot, and Chapters 7 and 8 cover 100+ pages to describe all of the wonderful museums, architecture, landmarks, and areas of city that Paris is known for. The included foldout map is not that useful, however, and is probably the weakest feature of this book. But, then again, whether I am driving or walking a lot through a city, I have found that most foldout maps that are included in various travel guides like this one pale in comparison to a good dedicated city map. Overall, this is a great one-book guide to Paris!

The best part of this guidebook is the introduction as well as the accompanying map. I don't like the layout of the book and how it is structured. I find that it overwhelms the reader with way too much information that they could not possibly use. I think that guidebooks should suggest "real" hotels and not these overly expensive and exotic locations, and I often wonder if Frommer's does their homework. Some of the hotels listed didn't seem very promising when they were looked up online. I gave the book four stars because, for a city like Paris with its long history, the book does highlight a lot of out of the way places that many other guidebooks even fail to mention. The photography is decent, too. Far too many guidebooks are published without very good photos or maps.

I saw the 2011 edition in the bookstore, and it seemed to be a marked improvement over the 2010 edition. My personal opinion is that guidebooks should be resources - don't forget to check out sites like wikitravel, wikipedia, and other travel related web sites and blogs.

As always the Frommer folks have put great information in a readable format for a very reasonable price. I think these are the best travel guids around becuase they tell you what you need to know about a place and what to watch out for.

This is the best guide of Paris I have read.
I may well be biased because it had my favourite painting featured - The wedding at Cana.
The book tells of many activities to do and many places to see, walks to enjoy and concerts to hear.

And for the those of us who enjoy a shop, there is an excellent shopping guide.
This year I am basing my entire holiday around Frommers Paris 2010

It is the detail that makes this a standout guide to Paris

This book came in really handy in Paris and you can't beat it for the price. :)