Customer Reviews

Rick Steves' Provence and the French Riviera 2004 (Rick Steves' Provence & the French Riviera)

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

 

 

While many people hail Rick Steves as a guru of european travel,
we were disappointed by two of his books on a recent trip to
Provence and to Tuscany, and soon learned to distrust his
recommendations. Some examples:
- he panned the hilltown of Bonnieux, Provence as having little
to see there-- we adored it as one of the highlights of the
trip, wishing we arrived early enough to enjoy more of the
shopping. FYI it maybe expensive for your taste, but it was
beautiful and relaxing.
- he strongly recommended against driving into Pisa, saying it
was a nightmare. In fact, we drove off the Fi-Pi-Li freeway,
parked across the street from the town for 2.50 euro, snapped
some fun photos, and drove off. Easily one of the most
efficient parts of the trip, and surprisingly fun to see.
- he didn't say great things about Carrara-- again, a highlight
of the trip to see marble mountains, visit a live quarry and
tour inside a mountain, surrounded by giant rooms of marble.
The souvenirs were some of the best we took back, including a
sculptural interpretation of the Bodicelli's Birth of Venus,
which two sculptor-friends lauded as being a quite impressive
little piece. (obviously mass-produced from marble-dust, not
hand-carved)
- he spends little or no effort on shopping, and too much time
on restaurant and hotel reviews. My fiancee loves clothes
shopping, and I love food shopping -- he covered little of
either. Meanwhile, we didn't care about hotels since we were
renting a villa (italy) and a exchanging our home (france).
- IMHO he spends too much time (pages) fussing over details of
specific hotels and restaurants, rather than covering more of
them in a simple list of ones to try and ones to avoid,
perhaps with a few words only. As a result, he covers a tiny
percentage of what's available, choosing what to cover at
random, often missing real gems. The best meal we ate in
Provence wasn't listed in his guide.
- the Provence restaurant and hotel scene seems to be changing
quickly in response to Parisian tourists but a glut of rooms.
I'm skeptical that the reviews are up-to-date in his (or any)
travel guide.

This is in stark contrast to great travel books like Lonely
Planet's guide to India, which proved unbelievably valuable
in finding out-of-the-way places and avoiding problems when
I went in 1996.

As with any travel guide, it pays to browse online first
(use amazon to read some sample pages)-- there are different
ones for different types of travelers-- from cheapskate travel
to luxury, student to drive-by tourist. This review is written
by someone who prefers to do less and see more, spending a week
in one place and avoid the big, touristy spots (hence the shock
of Pisa).

Finally, we also brought Frommer's, which wasn't much better,
nevermind the Amazon five-star rating.

We just got back from a week in Provence. We used several restaurant reviews, two lodging reviews and several museum tours. In our experience the information and maps were very accurate and concise.

I used this on my honeymoon in France. These are the best travel guides around!