Michelin France (Michelin National, No. 721) (English and French Edition) [Folded Map] [Map]

Michelin Travel Publications (Author)

Product Details

• Map
• Publisher: Michelin Travel Pubns; Multilingual edition (December 2004)
• Language: English, French
• ISBN-10: 2061005403
• ISBN-13: 978-2061005408
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 4.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,940,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Accurate but not suitable for most driving situations, October 18, 2006

By 

J. V. Lewis (secure undisclosed location) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Michelin France (Michelin National, No. 721) (English and French Edition) (Map)

I have no complaints about the accuracy, legibility, and clarity of this map [and others in the series]. But I've just returned from a month in France and Italy, navigating backroads to restaurants, gites, and country houses, and this map failed me in one important way: it is too small for driving except between big cities. France has a wonderfully logical street system [excluding the impossible complications of the pre-modern cities, of course] and is one of the easiest countries to drive in. But everything is densely packed into small areas for which the scale of this map is simply insufficient. It is simply impossible to navigate in Europe at this scale. If you buy this map for navigation, be sure to supplement it with one of the many large-scale, spiral-bound books available, preferrably also by Michelin, as others can be terribly inaccurate. American drivers are dismayed by the weirdly abstract and opaque signage system used in France, and unless you're bilingual, it's hard to keep up with street signs at driving speed. Tailgating is the rule, so you can't really slow down to read most of the time. So you must have a bigger map than this one, and spiral bound is most convenient.

And if you're planning on driving in Italy... Really, I have to recommend that you hire a local. Italy can be a nightmare of bad signage, decayed infrastructure, disgruntled public servants, and the twistiest damned roads this side of the Hindu Kush. No map will save you in Italy. You have to be born there, I think.