Customer Reviews

Paris (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are two kinds of travel books: those you use to help you plan a trip and those you want to have in your pocket when you make it. This exceptional book falls into the latter. Although it features some information on hotels and travel, these aspects of a prospective trip to Paris will be handled much more thoroughly by other volumes. Where this book excels is in its comprehensive coverage of things that any traveler will want to know, primarily the question: Where am I, and what do I want to see while in this section of Paris? Some travel books contain more information, but many of these fail to filter that which is likely to be of interest and that which is not. What is amazing about this one is the usability and pertinacity of the information presented.

The book begins with a brief history of Paris, and then provides an overview of the city as a whole. Much of the remainder of the volume consists of introductions to specific areas of Paris, letting any traveler know what the immediate highlights in any area are. The presentation of the information is as attractive as one can imagine, with beautiful graphics, beautiful photographs, and marvelous summations of the various highpoints in the city. The book ends with a useful index and a collection of high quality maps. Best of all, the book is amazingly compact and durable given the sheer mass of information it packages. Unlike its competitors, it will never be an encumbrance because of its size.

I have not looked at any of the other DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, but this one is so gorgeous that it is definitely the series that I would look at first in any trip that I was contemplating making. It is such a marvelous book that one could consult it with profit merely as a way of getting to know a city, even if one is not planning to travel there.

I just got back from Paris and can honestly say this is all you need. I kept this book in my pocket the whole time. It has great maps for getting around. The Metro map is quick and easy to use for getting around. The book breaks down Paris into areas and gives you pictures and descriptions of all the interesting sites to see in that area. Each description provides a metro stop and a location on one of the maps. The maps give you locations of all the metro stops. This was an invaluable tool for my group. We would go to an area and have full confidence wandering around knowing that DK would help us if we ran into a problem. I bought a bunch of books before my trip, but this is the only one you need!

My wife and I now have over 15 Eyewitness Travel Guides...obviously we like them. There are several reasons, and the Paris guide points these out quite well:
- the restaurant recommendations are spot on, at least for our taste. I have been to Paris more than 20 times, 5 or so for pleasure, the rest of business. I stay in different areas. I always pick a restaurant close to my hotel from this guide, and it never fails to meet my expectations (which were well set from the book)
- the maps and summaries of the attractions help you make the most efficient usage of your time. True, when on business, I do take a couple of hours to tour, but I cannot linger at the Louvre as I do when I am there for vacation. These guides help me map out what I want to see, where it might be in the museum, and even suggest when to go
- I try to go see Jazz and Classical performances while in Paris. I would not have had a great Jazz evening at the Bilboquet if not for finding it in this guide.
- What can I say, I am a convicted map-a-holic (which really irritates my wife, until we turn the corner and there we are!). I don't carry extra maps, I just carry the guide book, and use it's street maps and Metro maps to get around.

The final piece I like on these books are their simplicity. I had the rare pleasure to take my mother to Paris. Mom is not one for maps, but I let her peruse the Eyewitness Book, and she found some things that she wanted to see and where she wanted to eat (she loves mussels, and found several recommended restaurants in the guide book) and found places she didn't want me to take her (the Catacombs, but my son and I took her anyway).

Though many people do not enjoy these guides because they have too many pictures, I find that the pictures help me navigate the city, the attractions and the restaurants. Sometimes when in Paris I just wander and stop somewhere for a glass of wine...then I look in the guide to see where I've wandered to and if there is anything close, like a jazz club that I should go sample.

I have the older edition that I bought back in 2001, and it's fantastic. I used this book everywhere for my two-week trip to Paris, and more than the other three guide books I bought. The reason this book is so useful is that it doesn't describe the sites in long wordy paragraphs like the others. It's the one book I carried around everywhere. It includes tons of pictures that allow you tell quickly if you're at the right location, even if there's no sign (or if the sign is in a strange language). The pictures and illustrations make all the difference, and the layout is easy to understand. The maps are also useful and clear. The binding is also reasonably good quality, so that it hasn't fallen apart in spite of heavy use. I just loaned my friend this book, and he used it on his ten-day trip to Paris, and he also liked it. I can only imagine that this latest edition is as good or better than the one I have. If I make another trip to another place or city, I'll check what this series has to offer, first.

The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide for Paris is a perfect product for the first time traveler to Paris. I have used it the last 3 times I was in Paris, but I found it most useful on the first trip. It also makes great reading before going to Paris. Read it on the plane!

The historic chapters are brief but essential to understanding the history of France and the city of Paris. This is especially helpful in uderstanding the revolution and the Bourbon restoration after Napoleon I under Louis XVIII and his younger brother Charles X, followed by their cousin Louis-Philippe I and the take-over of government by Napoleon III.

Medieval Paris is still present in Paris at the Louvre, Notre-Dame, and Sainte-Chapelle. Sainte-Chapelle is not easily accessed and the guide helps you find your way to the entrance of this Gothic jewel. The guide has a special section on Sainte-Chapelle, the first Gothic structure, with its thin columns holding up beautiful glass walls of red and blue.

Renaissance Paris can be found in the wonderful Place Royale (Place des Vosges). This space is amazing, and continues to be used for housing and shops after 400 years. Within Place des Vosges is the Victor Hugo Museum, showing his apartment furnished with his original furniture. Just relax in the central courtyard.

The guide color codes the various Quaters of the city, offering the highlights of each section of the city, along with suggested walking routes. This helps the travel orient to the book while walking and also helps avoid the naggig problem of missing a point of interest while nearby.

A full 22 pages is devoted at the beginning of the guide with an extended time-line showing the history of Paris and offering tips on sites to visit to capture various eras in the city's history. I found this especially useful in understanding the grand transformation of the city under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann in which avenues and boulevards were widened, and the city became more accessible with broad grids and multiple spoke-like intersections. Because of this design, traffic jams are rare. When traveling, a slow-down on one street can be rectified by simply moving over one street. Travel patterns in the city are infinite.

The guide is well illustrated, with photographs, maps, drawings, charts and tables, all of which help the traveler orient and enjoy.

Because many travelers are in Paris only for a couple of days, the guide highlights the cities main tourist attractions and gives these sites ample explanation: Sainte-Chapelle, Versailles Palace, Pompidou Center, Musee d'Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Jardin du Luxembourg, Musee du Louvre, Notre Dame, an the Arc de Triomphe.

The guide includes a map of the metro system, which is inexpensive, convenient, and quick. However, be careful of pick-pockets at the metro stops at the major tourist sites. The gude advises you to buy a book of 10 metro rides at once for a cost saving. If you plan on being in the city long, this is a good idea.

There is a general subject index that is very thorough. For example, there are 17 entrys under Victor Hugo; 6 for Jean-Paul Sartre; and 24 for Pablo Picasso.

The maps at the end of the book were excellent and worth the price of the book. The street finder allowed you to orient yourself quickly if lost. The street finder was great for finding obscure addresses. We found the studios of Paul Braque and Nicholas De Stahl in hidden neighborhoods.

We had to use a taxi because we were late for a concert. The city is not taxi dependent like New York and Barcelona and thus taxis are harder to catch and more expensive. The bus routes are well marked and whereas they take longer than the undergound metro, you certainly see more of the city from a bus.

The guide helps explain the train system. I have come into Paris from Madrid, Brussels, and left Paris for Amsterdam and Frankfurt. It is important to know which train station to use. For example when arriving from or going to Amsterdam and Brussels you must use the Gare du Nord. When going to or arriving from Spain, you must use Gare Montparnasse. When going to or arriving from Frankfurt, you must use Gare de L'Est. you are in big trouble if you assume all these stations service the same destinations. The guide helps you sort this out so that you can use the train system in Paris conveniently.

The guide even tells you about the public toilets in Paris, which are conveniently located but the city needs far more of them. They are inexpensive and the entire little bathroom is washed down with sprinklers between users.

The street markets in Paris are wonderful and the guide tells you how to find the various markets. There are great cheese buys which you can take back to your hotel room to enjoy during your stay. The Passages are worth visiting for covered shopping. Walk down Rue du Faubourg St. Honore at least once to see the Chanel and Hermes flagship stores.

The guide also offers five guided walks. There are other books on this topic that offer many walking suggestions. This is one of the few weaknesses of the book, more suggested walks would be great.

As you can see, I found this guide to be fantastic, full of detail and pictures and maps. If I could give it six stars, I would.

...P>It is outstanding. The illustrations are excellent, the maps accurate and detailed. The only better map is the No 2 Plan to public transport available free from Metro stations, which shows metro , RER and bus routes with named streets, and the more expensive book maps by arrondissement available in Paris.

But unless you want to cart around two books, the maps in this volume are excellent (warning: there are a few places they DON'T cover, so if you are planning visits to some of the less touristed arrondissements, you will need a map book as well).

I used this in conjunction with Fodor's Around Paris With Kids, and together they covered everything we needed as a family.

The house style of Eyewitness Guides is now well-known, and this volume is as good as, if not better, than any. You really can't go wrong if you pack this. It will even make you want to go places you might otherwise have dismissed.

DK's Eyewitness Travel Guides are our best travel companion during our tour of Europe. Full of tips, pictures, maps, site info, history, local reference ... every page is not only helpful but beautiful. The layout anf format is very innovative and reader friendly, a ture standing out from any other travel books. It was interesting to see that almost everywhere we went, we saw other people (tourists apparently) holding and checking the same DK book on the street.
The coverage is comprehensive and growing year after year, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice ... every city we went have its own Eyewitness serie. We studied them before our trip, consulted them during our trip, and kept them as memo and photo book after our trip. They are simply essential part of the travel fun.

I recommend buying indiviual city/area book wherever possible instead of the country book. For example, buy Rome, Florence, and Venice books instead of Eyewitness Italy (unless your destination doesn't have its own Eyewitness). That way you get more detailed and targeted info.

If you are a grown-up and want context for your travels, this series brings it. They figure, reasonably for me, that you already know how to shop and that club-hopping is not the be-all and end-all--and that, if it were, you would probably be able to suss all that out.

No no no. Paris has history and you get a well-digested if detached version of it. Paris has neighborhoods that were villages, and you get a nicely laid-out approach to each, including well-marked maps and a variety of delights in each. Paris has a wealth of all kinds of cultural attractions, and you get a sense of many many many of them (and how to get to them). Paris has flavors, and I find the authors' characterizations accurate and evocative.

I admit that I find the lists of restaurants disappointing, in that those listed are very very safe and therefore less interesting, but I am good at reading a restaurant from its menu, and enjoy going to places where English is not spoken and where the locals hang out. Others might find the establishments exactly what they want.

By the way, the editors are scrupulous about updating information and maintaining accuracy. I wrote to them about a minor error, and they not only responded, but thanked me with a freebie. Great attitude, and it shines on all the (glossy high clay-content) pages. In fact, that is my only real complaint about this book: it is a heavy little package, and I would not want to carry it around with me. As a reference, however, it is very fine indeed.

On a recent trip to Paris, I took along a DK Eyewitness guide for Paris as well as a Frommer's guide. In all honesty, I could have relied solely on the DK guide and been fine. The photographs are helpful when you need to locate different landmarks and structures and the maps are VERY reliable (unlike Frommer's), which is absolutely essential in a city like Paris.

If you choose DK guides that focus on a particular city or region, they are slimmer and more portable than the all-country guides. Information has been whittled down to the essentials, which I must admit has its downsides. At times I wish the writers provided more information on cultural aspects, but there are other guides for that. DK guides focus on destinations such as museums, gardens, parks, historic homes, etc. I would have to agree that the sections on hotels and restaurants are almost useless. Single sentence descriptions, although concise, aren't necessarily helpful when trying to choose an interesting location.

The best feature of DK guides is the ease with which you can navigate each guide. I've browsed through (and read) many, and they all have the same format. The history sections are useful and concise, and the divisions within each guide actually make sense. After a little while, you can quickly determine which page to flip to when you need to look up transporation tips or maps, or whatever else you might need.

As for the Paris guide, I found it informative and accurate. I do wish the guide provided more information about holidays and national celebrations. I traveled during Christmas and didn't know what to expect. I have to admit, though, that many guides don't cover holidays well. So for all of you that may wonder, the Champs-Elysees is surprisingly busy (albiet with tourists) Christmas day, the metro operates all day, patisseries, charcuteries, and other specialty food shops are open in the morning (for all those tardy shoppers I suspect), there are many eateries open in the more touristy areas, parks are less crowded and have some French families strolling about, and it IS bitterly cold. Oh, and it's sleepier the day after Christmas.

For anyone traveling to Paris this is a must have travel guide. It clearly lays out region by region in a city that is too large to conquer in a short period of time. It is best to see Paris in this way and it will ensure that you see everything on your trip. Following top 10 lists takes you out of your way and you miss the smaller more elegant parts that are not in some travel books. Recommendations on hotels and restaurants are top notch. Highly recommend for anyone taking a trip that wants to see all of what Paris has to offer.