Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) [Paperback]

Knopf Guides (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996 | Series: Knopf Guides

"Combines the beauty of a coffee-table tome with the hard facts and compact size of a traditional guidebook." -- Vogue

A city of incomparable beauty, culture and history, Paris has enchanted writers from Balzac to Hemingway and artists from Monet to Picasso. Paris is the place travelers return to year after year -- to revisit favorite cafes, museums, parks  and palaces, to take in the art and architecture, fragrance and couture, music and cuisine. Discover the "city of lights."

Sample the sights and sounds of Paris, from the gloriously restored Marais district to historic Left Bank streets with their irresistible antique shops. Visit the places you have always heard about: the Pantheon, burial site of Voltaire, Hugo and Rousseau; Notre-Dame, masterpiece of Gothic architecture and haunt of the fictional Quasimoto; the Paris Opera, with its glittering chandeliers and resplendent ceiling painted by Chagall. Go underground and explore the famous catacombs or venture out to the celebrated sites nearby, including Versailles, Vaux-le-Viocomte and Chantilly. Discover the romance of Paris with detailed itineraries to guide you through one of Europe's most beloved cities.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

From the Inside Flap

"Combines the beauty of a coffee-table tome with the hard facts and compact size of a traditional guidebook." -- Vogue

A city of incomparable beauty, culture and history, Paris has enchanted writers from Balzac to Hemingway and artists from Monet to Picasso. Paris is the place travelers return to year after year -- to revisit favorite cafes, museums, parks  and palaces, to take in the art and architecture, fragrance and couture, music and cuisine. Discover the "city of lights."

Sample the sights and sounds of Paris, from the gloriously restored Marais district to historic Left Bank streets with their irresistible antique shops. Visit the places you have always heard about: the Pantheon, burial site of Voltaire, Hugo and Rousseau; Notre-Dame, masterpiece of Gothic architecture and haunt of the fictional Quasimoto; the Paris Opera, with its glittering chandeliers and resplendent ceiling painted by Chagall. Go underground and explore the famous catacombs or venture out to the celebrated sites nearby, including Versailles, Vaux-le-Viocomte and Chantilly. Discover the romance of Paris with detailed itineraries to guide you through one of Europe's most beloved cities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679764534
• ISBN-13: 978-0679764533
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,009,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1/2 of the must have duo, March 16, 2002

By 

Stephen McHenry (Olney, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) (Paperback)

If you are going to Paris, this is one of the two books that you must have as a minimum. It is gorgeous, lush, dense with illustrations. Knopf does the best job on items like flora, fauna, architecture, history, art, how the city has been seen by others, its fashion legacy, street life, medieval influence, sub-cultures, music, and so on, each topic at least a two page spread that is always satisfying to the eyes.
A guided walking tour is the standard Knopf format for revealing the city, as opposed to the Eyewitness itemized number format. The Eyewitness guide is the other half of the pair that you must have to visit Paris, each complementing the other rather than competing. This Knopf guide has some gorgeous pull out maps/pages in the middle of the book that are really great.
The Knopf weakness is in it's ability to help you plan: There is a wonderful diagram of the Catacombs, on a fold out page showing details about the fascinating sites beneath the city, with pictures of some of the bones in the Catacombs; but nowhere will the Knopf guide tell you what time it is open or when. The Eyewitness guide is much stronger in that respect, the Knopf guides are almost as good as the Eyewitness when it comes to maps, the Eyewintness being better.
The Knopf guide has 7 pages of general index plus 10 pages for listing illustrations. The Eyewitness guide has 20 pages of general index with none for illustrations, which is to say the Knopf guide is more romantic, the Eyewitness guide more practical, they are 5 star both, and you should have both.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have Book, July 20, 2002

By 

Robert F. Weir "robfweir" (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) (Paperback)

The trouble with most travel books is that if you don't have the most recent edition, the information is probably out of date. The beauty of this book on Paris is that there is information on the culture, the cuisine, the history, the art, with a small, very small section on hotels and restaurants. This is not just a great book to prepare you for your trip to Paris, this is a book for a student of the city.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real Paris, June 21, 2000

By 

Angela S. Fortezza-Soto (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) (Paperback)

This guide is wonderful for anybody who wants to see the true city beyond the modern facade of fast food joints and chain stores. It will give you great insights into the history of Paris, without endless boring lists of hotels and restaurants. There is so much you might miss otherwise, and it would be a shameful waste of time to go there without fully appreciating all the secrets, legends, gossip and wonderful stories. And to read what the writers think of Paris, and how the artists see it....it makes the city come to life. If you want maps and lists, get another guide. If you want to know what you're looking at, get this one!