Paris (Eyewitness Travel Guides) (Turtleback)

by Alan Tillier (Author), Paul Hines (Editor), Anna Brooke (Contributor) "PARIS, THE CAPITAL of France, is a city of over two million people covering 460 sq miles (1,200 sq km) of northern France..." (more)
Key Phrases: last adm, public hols, public hots, Les Halles, Eiffel Tower, Palais Royal (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Eyewitness Travel Guides are the original illustrated travel guidebooks-and they're still the best. Since 1993, the Eyewitness brand has established itself as one of the industry leaders, with sales of more than 6.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. Featuring more than 70 worldwide destinations, new titles are being added to the best-selling Eyewitness Travel Guides series each year. In 2003, to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of Eyewitness Travel Guides, DK is re-launching the entire series, fully updated, and with a brand-new look.

Product Details

• Turtleback: 432 pages
• Publisher: DK Travel; Revised edition (January 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789493896
• ISBN-13: 978-0789493897
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #169,187 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An almost perfect travel book, June 20, 2003

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just got back from Paris, This book is all you need, March 28, 2003

By	C. Mar (Leesburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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!

83 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Visually appealing but no hard-core info., November 7, 2003

By	Nacozari - See all my reviews

I think the title of my review wraps it all up: the eyewitness guides are a work of graphic art. Their highlight is probably the great work on the maps, both small and large scale, which are of great help as you navigate around the city looking for sights. As a tool for reaching all of the sights you want to see, I would say that the Eyewitness Guide is among the best, with its street map, neighborhood maps and Metro/subway guide. In addition to this, as another positive comment I would say that it is a great guide to take on a trip if you don't have much time and you need information presented in an easy-to-read, simple manner. The drawings and photos, and the way they are laid out, is very appealing.

The advantages stop there, however. If you really want to get to know a city, you simply need more in-depth historical and cultural information on the sights you are seeing. Most of the locations described in the Eyewitness Guide do not stretch beyond a paragraph or two, which is quite superficial in my opinion. If you really want to know about the history behind the church, monument, museum or park you have traveled so far to see, you will definitely need another guidebook to give you any kind of detail. This flaw becomes far worse when you read the sections on sights outside of the city or in the suburbs (which are many!). The descriptions become utterly superficial.

Harsh critique also for the hotel and restaurant information, which is limited to places designed for the rich and famous, or at least the very upper of the upper-middle class. The best guides give you a little info. on all styles of lodging and food, from low budget to luxury, but these guides make little effort to do so, and even the information on the laps of luxury is limited to little symbols, instead of providing descriptions like other guides do.

With this combination of characteristics, I think Eyewitness is good to take along for a short trip in which you have little time to spend seeing the city and you don't really care about getting any deep information on what you're seeing. Otherwise, keep looking for another guidebook.