Rick Steves' Paris 2004 (Paperback)

~ (Author), Steve Smith (Author), Gene Openshaw (Author) "Many people fall in love with Paris..." (more)
Key Phrases: Eiffel Tower, Pompidou Center, Arc de Triomphe (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rick Steves, author of 21 guidebooks and host of the television series Travels in Europe with Rick Steves, has spent 100 days a year traveling Europe, every year, since 1973. If any American knows Paris, he does, and his self-imposed mission is to make the city just as accessible to those of us who don't have the good fortune to spend months there at a time.

In his amiable, informed, and ruthlessly candid way, Steves focuses on the best--including nice places to stay and eat that give lots in the way of character and take relatively little in the way of francs. He suggests walking tours, museums, and itineraries that include both famous landmarks and little-known finds. He knows it all: art galleries and crêpe stands, street cafés and romantic neighborhoods, activities for kids, and great places to shop. Most importantly, he knows how Parisians live, and his guide provides the best information to let you experience not just the sights of Paris, but Parisian life as well. --Stephanie Gold --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Home to magnificent art museums, romance, and some of the world's most revered food, Paris is most often at the top of anyone's "must see" list. Learn to navigate the city on the Paris Metro; view the numerous masterpieces in the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay; or take a self-guided walking tour of the sights along the Champs-Elysees. With Rick Steves' Paris 2004, travelers can delve into Parisian culture, make friends with the locals, and experience everything Paris has to offer — economically and hassle-free. Completely revised and updated, Rick Steves' Paris 2004 includes color maps, selective coverage of both famous and lesser-known sights; friendly places to eat and sleep; suggested day plans; walking tours and trip itineraries; clear instructions for smooth travel anywhere by car, train, or foot; and Rick's newest "back door" discoveries. America's number one authority on travel to Europe, Rick's time-tested recommendations for safe and enjoyable travel in Europe have been used by millions of Americans in search of their own unique European travel experience.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566915228
• ISBN-13: 978-1566915229
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #900,540 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

158 of 162 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Published Guide for Planning a Trip to Paris, May 14, 2000

By	James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Rick Steves' Paris 2000 (Paperback)

I have used both the 1999 and 2000 editions of this excellent guide, and can only say that it is the best of the lot, closely followed by the Lonely Planet and DK Eyewitness guides.

What makes Steves' guides so useful is that he addresses himself to Americans who are not used to foreign travel with the principal goal of eliminating their fear by helping to get their feet wet. To this end, his guides are more PRESCRIPTIVE than DESCRIPTIVE.

For a good DESCRIPTIVE guide, I would turn to another guide such as Lonely Planet or Rough Guide, supplemented, perhaps, by Rachel Kaplan's excellent "Little-Known Museums In and Around Paris."

A PRESCRIPTIVE guide like this will urge that you avoid the Madeleine, Opera Garnier, and Pantheon because they aren't worth it -- and don't bother with the Bastille, because it was torn down over 200 years ago. Steves concentrates on accommodations and restaurants in only three parts of Paris: Rue Cler (near the Eiffel Tower), the Marais, and the Rue Mouffetard area. That saves perhaps a hundred pages and makes the book more compact and easy to carry during a trip.

One of the strong points of the book is the merging of material from Steves' useful "Mona Winks" art guide into his Paris book. "Mona Winks" shows how you can visit the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Cluny Museum (highly recommended), and Versailles without killing yourself. For the Louvre, as an example, he concentrates how you can devote your attention to parts of the Sully and Denon wings and see the key works in about 2-3 hours. (Okay, if you're a purist, don't flame me: You and I would, of course, devote more time -- but that's not the issue here.)

For the most complete info on Paris, I would suggest you supplement Steves with two fantastic Internet resources: the postings on the rec.travel.europe newsgroup (especially by JACK), and the website of the RATP (which runs the Metro and buses in Paris) at http://www.ratp.fr

143 of 148 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just about the perfect guidebook for Paris, November 19, 1999

By	"asfaiola" (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rick Steves' Paris (Rick Steves' Paris, 1999) (Paperback)

I say just about perfect because a few additions would make this the only guidebook you will ever need for Paris. As a recently relocated American expat in London, my wife and I just took our first weekend trip to Paris (by train) with this book and the Fodor's Gold guide. If you like to walk, the walking tours are superb, Rick Steve's commentary, history, directions, anecdotes, and humor are all excellent. His guided tours of museums, churches, and other sites are all very interesting. The book also includes short trips outside the city, such as Versailles. I anticipate using this book many more times (you can only see so much in a weekend), and to make it perfect I would implore the editors to add a Paris Metro/RER map and a proper map of the city (the only maps in this edition are localized hand-drawn maps for each walk, making it difficult to guage the overall scale of the city and where things are located in relation to each other). These were the only two things that were invaluable in the Fodor's guide. Certainly it's easy enough to pick those up in the city, but I have always found it more convenient to study maps ahead of time, and have them all in one place. Overall, however, this is the one guidebook to Paris that no visitor to the city should be without.

56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent guide for first trip- with these caveats, June 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Rick Steves' Paris 2001 (Rick Steves' Paris, 2001) (Paperback)



Well I just came back from Paris where the only book I took along was Rick Steves' Paris 2001, supplemented with a "Paris Pratique" map bought in a Paris bookstore (get the book, not the fold out map) and of course a subway map.

For the first time visitor (and I was), this book covers the basics you need for budget trip. For a few days I was guarding the book more than my wallet, I was so dependent upon it-- it allowed me to see the highlights of the museums and sights without spending overly large amounts of time or precious physical energy. Of special help were the hints on how to avoid lines in the hot sun at the museums.

The great joy of this book is it cuts monstrous sites like the Louvre down to manageable size. This convenience comes at a cost: the book reflects Rick Steves' tastes in art and food, which may not be your own. But for a first timer like me it was great. After a few days, I started to explore on my own.

If the book has any faults, I would say that its recommended itineraries and guided tours focus too much on cathedrals and museums. Also, Rick fails to do with restaurants what he does so well with the sights, i.e., guide you toward a limited number of recommended/rated selections. He does recommend some places, but the "walk" maps generally don't include any of these recommended eating/drinking places, they are listed separately in the "eating" section of the book, making cross-referencing difficult. For gastronomic adventure beyond Rick's diet of croissants and cheese sandwiches, you need another book. You might try "Cheap Eats in Paris." Note, there is an excellent vegetarian restaurant at 72 Rue Lemoine.

If you follow this book you will see more Americans than Parisians. Also, in every museum some of the recommended exhibits had been moved, and Rick neglected to mention "Pentecost" holiday. But these are minor objections.

Overall, while I would have prioritized some of the sights differently (see below), the book was a great guide and time saver, superior to the others I looked at, and in most cases it was faster and more concise (and had better interior maps) than the audio tours and maps available at sights. I highly recommend it. Other reviews complain about the book's street maps, but I had no problem- maybe that's because I had a mini street map with me. I was never lost.

Note, missing from the book entirely are:

Warnings about how difficult it is to navigate the Orsay museum (what a mess-- everyone walking around lost),

Day trips to Normandy Beaches (note, to truly see the D Day sites takes a few days at least)

Opera Guarnier ( don't know why everyone poo-poos this as a tourist site, it had a lot of people there, it is extremely well maintained [this was how Versailles must have looked in its heyday], and once you see that and the Sewer tour you have a new appreciation of the Phantom of the Opera).

Also missing from this and every other guidebook: Sites where scenes from favorite movies (American in Paris, Charade, etc.) were shot- finding these locations was a fabulous, cheap, and relatively tourist free part of the trip.

A few opinions different from the book:

Versailles was mildly interesting, historically important, but in my opinion overrated.

I would downgrade these sites to one star each or less:

Deportation Memorial (this is the one place in Paris where I felt truly unwelcome. It's not really a tourist site-- if you don't have a personal connection to it I would recommend avoiding it. It is closed 12-2, and worst of all there was a very (even for France) testy guard blowing whistles and yelling at people for not being respectful enough. The exit I took had a long flight of stairs ending at a locked gate, I had to go around and climb another flight . . . ugh)

Napoleon Crypt and WWII Museum (Yawn)

Conciergerie (essentially, a large basement)

Rick's Champs Elysees Walk (Just like any big street downtown city street in America)-- stick to the small neighborhoods.

And bring a good pair of walking shoes!