Alan Tillier
Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness city guides bill themselves as "the guides that show you what others only tell you" and indeed, spectacular illustrations are one of their strongest points. Every page of an Eyewitness guide is filled with beautiful color photographs, maps, drawings and diagrams that bring popular tourist destinations to life. Each guide color-codes the city's districts or neighborhoods, making it easy for readers to know at a glance just where they are in the book--and where they want to go.
Eyewitness Paris is typical of the series: a brief history of the city is followed by "Paris at a Glance" featuring the best museums, churches and parks; "Paris Through the Year," a description of the seasons; and "A River View of Paris" which takes the reader on a tour along the Seine. After this introductory section,
Eyewitness Paris tackles the city of lights district by district, starting with Ile de la Cite and ending with Montmartre. At the back of the book is a lengthy section called "Travelers Needs" which includes extensive information about restaurants, hotels, shopping venues entertainment opportunities and special activities for children. The "Survival Guide" gives practical information about getting into and out of Paris, banking and postal services, safety, transportation, and more.
One of the best things about the Eyewitness series are the guided walks for each city. In Paris you have a choice of five 90-minute walks: around Parc Monceau, along the Canal St.-Martin, around the Ile St-Louis, in Auteuil or in Montmartre--the directions for each are clear, the sites well worth seeing, and each provides you with the best possible way of getting to know the city. Don't be deceived by Eyewitness Paris's picture-heavy format--this little picture book packs a lot of information! Don't leave home without it.
1 Excellent travel tool!
My wife and I went to Paris on our honeymoon and we had a fantastic time in that glorious city. One of the things that helped us enjoy more and that helped us take advantage of all the city has to offer was having this travel guide.
The Eyewitness travel guides are a step ahead of any other series of travel books because it not only includes the same information that the other have, but they also include additional information that is really great to know and have while abroad.
This guide has all the usual bits about he city: the top sites to visit (including work hours so as not to get there when they're closed!), how to move around (info on buses, Le Metro, trains, taxis, you name it), lists of shops and restaurants (with different price ranges and organized by location)and great street maps. It also has historic information on the city, which truly enriched our visit by helping us appreciate the places and sites we were visiting.
However, the greatest thing about the guide were the "walk routes", helpful suggestions on ways how to best go site seeing. Even if you don't follow them completely, they give you great ideas on where to go.
It also includes lots of information on sites outside of Paris, which are great to visit if you have the time.
All in all, an excellent travel tool!
2 Indispensible! A Must-Have for those who truly wants to....
...experience Paris.
It is a dream to use, very clear and user-friendly. The street-by-street maps were invaluable. There were also detailed maps and descriptions of individual sites (like museums, and Versailles) which guided you through the highlights of those sites.
I would use it constantly, so it was hardly ever in my bag. Even my husband, who is anti-guidebook, used it too! We ended up seeing and enjoying more of Paris than I could ever have imagined beacuse of the detail included in this book.
3 Best Travel Book for Paris
I used almost this entire book while in Paris. The book gives great "walk routes" to make sure you see everything (for example, it features a walk through Pere Lechaise Cemetary). While you walk, it points out areas of interest and tells of the history. It also tells you which metro stop to get off, so all the areas in Paris and surrounding area are easily accesible. I will use this book again next time I visit France. If you dig old castles, check out Fontainebleau Castle, which is about an hour train ride out of Paris. This is the ultimate book for Paris travelers. It even has a "french phrase insert" for easy translation and speaking. This was my first time to Paris, I was meeting my best friend there, and for the most part I was alone and was not lost because of this book!
4 Useful info but almost impossible to use
The book is a cute, appealing size. It lists many good bars, places to eat etc. But it has a major flaw: No matter how hard I searched through the book, I didn't see any mention of arrondissements, which are the various numbered neighborhoods.
Everyone in Paris and every map uses these numbers to direct you. "It's in the 14th." for example. Well, with this book I had to constantly reference other maps then locate the street and see which arrondissement the place was located in. I'm not just venting. I was really disappointed I had depended on this book as my only resource.
Additionally, because it combines neighborhoods - I assume to save space so it can maintain a petite, portable size - that is confusing as well and also prevented me from being able to map the named neighborhood to the arrondissement.
My recommendation? Bring this book only if you can bring another. It's really not worth the price considering the hassle.
5 I carried it with me every day...
I just returned from my first visit to Paris, and I took this book with me everywhere I went. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The maps helped me find everything, and the information was helpful, and fun to read!
It was actually fun to walk around and see how many other people also had this book... turns out tons of people carried it with them, as I saw it every day in someone's hands.
Get this book for your next visit... it's worth every penny.
6 A great aid for first time visitors to Paris
It has LOT of information that at first may look overwhelming to anyone that wishes to visit Paris in a short period of time, however, its friendly design (divided by city area), its comprehensive page layout (including easy to view graphics, pictures and maps) and its "must see" lists per area make it easy to select the important places for any visitor (we very much enjoyed Pompidou's modern art but most Paris visitors seek classics instead).
This book provided us with the essential information to make the most of our visit considering our time constraints, if time is no problem to you, in dept information is also included in such detail that we were sometimes better informed than parisians themselves.
My wife and I do not like carying anything while we visit(not even a small back pack). The heavy ammount of information provided cannot be light in weight (I know we are very picky on this issue) but the book size will fit confortably in most purses.
In Summary: It is an essential aid for first time visitors to Paris, and it is even compact in size (easy to cary) and easy to read (consider that English is my second language).
7 Eyewitness Guide to Paris: A+++
I just got back from Paris, and this was the BEST travel book I'd seen. It's perfect and covers EVERYTHING you need to know. It's like having your own personal tour guide right there with you!!
8 Great resource for planning and en route
I have had great experiences with the DK Guides. I use it exstensively in my trip planning and this is the guide I take on the trip.
This guide provides execllent information about local sites throughout Beligium. It gives very clear guidance concerning what you can find and access information. It also helps you to locate the sites with indexed maps and diagrams.
I have found that this and the other DK Guides are bit weak in providing guidance about what to see. That is, it offers little qualitative information--everything sounds equally wonderful. And we all know this is not necessarily the case.
So I always find another guide that has more opinions and recomended walking tours and the like to determine what to see. This has worked out well for the most part. I use other guides to plan the trip and the DK Guide in the country.
It has very usable maps although sometimes too limited in scope and you may require a local map to get around beyond the central city. Also, because the book is a bit heavy and too large to fit in a jacket pocket after the first day or so I leave it in the hotel and rely on the local map when walking about.
The one topic I find most reliable is DK's restaurant recommendations. The two places I tried in Paris were fantastic and offered everything that the guide described. I have had equal success with DK's restaurant recommendations in other cities/countries.
I think this is an indispensible travel guide as long as you know what you are using it for--planning or background info, etc.
9 Great Travel Guide, Beautiful Coffee Table Book!
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Summary:
Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!
The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.
The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.
Guide Specifics:
The guides are organized as follows:
How to use this guide
Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
Geographical Regions
............Introduction Paris
........................Map
........................History
........................At a Glance
........................Through the Year
............Paris Area by Area, each including:
........................Introduction to street by street area
........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings
........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.
Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
............Hotels
............Restaurants
............Shops / Markets
............Entertainment
............Paris for children
Survival Information
............Practical
........................Tourist info., Etiquete, Personal Security and Health
........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.
............Getting to Paris
........................Planes, trains and automobiles, signs
........................General map, sectional maps with index
............Getting to / around Paris
........................Maps, tours, currency, etc.
............General Index
............Phrase Book
Discussion:
The book begins with "Introducing Paris", including a complete map, a review, the city's history, and Paris thought the Year - including events, etc.
Areas with an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or forums, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.
Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.
The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions
The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.
Conclusion:
Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.
10 A wonderful format for a guide book
I recently got back from my third trip to Paris, and of all the guidebooks I have brought with me over these past 10 years, this was the one I used, and enjoyed, the most. Let's face it, every good guide book out there has helpful hotel and restaurant recommendations, and since individuals ofter have very subjective and different perceptions of the same places, you can never please everyone with those picks. In advance of the vacation, I not only used these guide books but also browsed the web ... for info, and didn't always use picks from the Eyewitness book. I also purchased metro and museum passes online before the trip, which I highly recommend.
So why did I like it so much? While most books will suggest places to go and give you helpful information such as opening hours, price, etc., no other book can match these books for illustrations, descriptions, and unique three dimenional "cut-out" sketches to give you an idea of the scope or architectural design of places like the Pantheon, Basilica Sacre Couer, Saint Chappelle, etc. The night before you visit an attraction such as those listed above, you can read a multi-page description, learning about the historical significance of the site, or of efforts to preserve it during WW II, etc. I would consistently get stoked to visit ancient churches, plazas, parks, museums and other attractions after spending ten minutes reading about them in the Eyewitness guide. Then, when standing in the splendor of St. Chappelle for example, you might understand the stained glass scheme a little better.
I should also point out that these books are everywhere in Paris. It is the one guide book my wife and I consistently saw on other restaurant tables, or being held discreetly by other tourists at the Musee de Orsay, for example. There are helpful maps, not only of the city in general, but of individual neighborhoods making small walking tours easy. There are also very detailed guides to getting home from the airport, which made it easy to take the RER train into the city and avoid an expensive cab ride.
Some have snubbed their noses at the book as being for people with no knowledge of Paris who need pictures - I think that's unfair. The 3-D cutouts and pictures are there if you want them, if you care to skip them you can, but the text is as informative and detailed as I have seen in others like Frommers, Fodors, Dummies Guide, etc. The book is also slim enough to stick in a camera bag, or in a handbag of your wife, for discreetly plucking it out during your metro trips. Buy it as far in advance of your trip as possible, and thumb through it at night to get psyched for your trip. Highly recommended.
P.S. And if you buy it and like the format, there is also an excellent Eyewitness Guide to the Loire Valley, with unparalleled information about Loire Valley chateaus, lodging and dining, that I used and really liked.
11 The best
The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide series is always top notch, the Paris book being a sterling example. My 2001 edition was acurate with opening/closing times for sights, great maps, interesting pictures, helpful informaton, good layout & design. Besides the intricacies of the city, outside sites like EuroDisneyLand or the Palace of Versailles are covered well.
Perhaps boderline as to whether it is a little too heavy to carry around all day, you must have it and take it with you at least as far as the hotel.
12 Could not get it out my neice's hands
When we ordered our airline tickets, I sent this book to my 12-year-old neice and the "10-best" version to her 14-year-old bro. She brought the book on our trip and they both read it every day. They both had lists of things they wanted to see (but "No museums!"). Neice: Eiffel Tower and Jardin du Luxembourg. Nephew: Notre Dame, Pantheon, Catacombes. It was the second most gratifying thing about the trip (No. 1: neice writing her journal entries on the plane going home. Which she later read to her class). But next time I will order three copies: for neice, nephew and uncle.
13 Great guide to Paris
I recommend traveling with a DK guide and a Fodors' guide to all destinations. The combination of these two will serve you quite well.
14 don't leave home without it
I bought 5 different guide books before our trip to Paris. This was by far the best of the bunch. The maps are awesome. This guide also packs in alot of sights that were absent from other guides. I highly recommend this book. Don't miss St. Chapelle!
15 Made my life easier!
This book was a big help to me and my husband in getting around Paris. First, the "MUST SEE" guide helped us maximized our 5 days trip to Paris. I was not familiar with the train system but the Metro map was accurate and drawn well. Second, the admission information about the museums and sights were all correct! But best of all, I wouldn't be able to understand all the things that I have seen without its help because mostly are in French!!! Thank goodness for this book bec. it saved me bucks and time bec. we don't have to join a tour group. Also, I've seen several people using this book. I highly recommend it!!!
16 A Must-Have for a Tourist Trip to Paris
I am a bit of a travel book fanatic. I buy and read many for every place I visit. I am also a Paris fanatic having visited 5 times in the past 13 years.
While other books do a better job of providing hotel and restaurant info, this is the one book that I brought with me in my camera bag every day when marching around the city. The photos are great and help a great deal in terms of choosing what to see.
The maps are mostly great, although I must admit that I found the detail to be slightly lacking in some cases - the map of Versailles' gardens lacking (it omits the "Hameau de la Reine" which is the best thing there in my opinion) and the map of Pere Lachaise was missing some of the minor paths.
If you are going to Paris, definitely get this one and perhaps the Rough Guide to Paris for hotel/restaurant recs. The Eyewitness book is a nice book to have after the trip, too, as its photos, diagrams and maps are something you can regard as souvenirs of your visit.
17 One of Many Users
With aplogies to Amazon, I must admit that I bought this book at Costco for a very competive price. We were in Paris for six days in June and the book was with us all the time. It was interesting to see that at least half of those who looked like tourists were also carrying the book, and in other languages than English. We too enjoyed the 90-minute walks, although, of course, you are guaranteed to walk with other tourists. We are returning to Paris for 8 days in October. We salivate when we open the book during planning sessions.
18 Comprehensive, and unique.
The Eyewitness Travel guide series offers the best system in travel guide books. The Paris guide is no exception.
These books include everything. Street maps, metro maps, museum prices, times, information on EVERYTHING.
I left to study abroad in Paris last year, and spent lots of money on essentially useless guidebooks. The only one I used, and the only one I should have saved room for in my suitcase was the Eyewitness guide.
I used it my entire semester, finding new things in it all the time that I wanted to see, and just as an essential tool in Paris.
The first couple of days, the Metro map was indespensable.
This guidebook is one that should not be left at home. It offers hotels, restaurants, museums, and pictures of nearly everything, to boot.
I guarantee that this guidebook will not let you down. The Eyewitness guides are all you need, and all I will ever purchase in the future for my travel guidebook needs.
Enjoy Paris! Bon Voyage.
19 Don't leave home without one.
My wife won't travel to any city that does not have one of these guides. She figures that if the city isn't good enough to have one, we don't need to see it.
20 Best one-volume travel series
The Eyewitness Travel Guide series is my favorite series in the if-you-could-only-take-one-book-what-would-it-be category. Others may be more comprehensive (Lonely Planet, for example) or better suited to particular topics or interests. But if you're going to, in this case, Paris, for a week or two, and you know you want to see the major sites and some out-of-the way places too, this is your book.
What is unique about these books? This book has beautiful photos, but so do the Insight Guides. It lists lots of things and places to see, do, eat and stay, but don't they all? Two things set this series apart: organization and maps.
The guide organizes itself according to areas of the city. This does not necessarily break down according to "arrondisement," but in a way that is more useful to the tourist. Its sections organize things to see and do by location and neighborhood, which makes planning schedules yourself much easier, as opposed to following suggested schedules (which invariably contain stops you aren't interested in) or having to flip from the museum section to the parks section to the monuments section to the churches section and trying to figure out which ones to see on the same day. This is made even easier by the maps.
In addition to excellent conventional maps of the city, this guide has drawings that show axonometric, aerial views of neighborhoods, with building-by-building, house-by-house depictions of what the neighborhoods look like and how they are laid out. You can see how the things you want to see in that neighborhood are situated in relation to each other. It's like getting a helicopter tour of that neighborhood before you arrive on the ground. No other guidebooks have this feature. I think the combination of the neighborhood organization layout and these unique maps (which are right in the relevant sections) make day planning a breeze and even fun.
On the negative side for some, the restaurants and lodgings are in separate sections. I don't find this is a problem. I'm not going to be looking for a place to stay every night while I'm sightseeing anyway--I figure out the one place I'm staying in advance and use that as my base. And we often plan dinner locations separately from rest of the day's activities and wing it for lunch. So I consider the separation of the lodging and restaurant sections to be an advantage. But if you like to plan all your meals in advance in the same neighborhood you'll be sightseeing in, or plan to wander up and down the streets looking for a new hotel every day, or a recommended restaurant in the 'hood, you'll have to do a bit of flipping back and forth between sections.
This is a great trip planning tool, and with its beautiful photos and smashing map/aerial drawings, it will get you excited about your upcoming trip, too.
21 Best Travle Guides
I used the DK Paris Eyewitness Travel Guide with me on my trip to Paris in November and fund everything and more. This book is clear, informative, directive and essential for a traveler. The book guided me to all attraction in every area of Paris. I truly recommend this book and the whole Eyewitness Travel Guides series. (I was also using the Amsterdam Eyewitness Travel Guide)
22 Best Travle Guides
I used the DK Paris Eyewitness Travel Guide with me on my trip to Paris in November and fund everything and more. This book is clear, informative, directive and essential for a traveler. The book guided me to all attraction in every area of Paris. I truly recommend this book and the whole Eyewitness Travel Guides series. (I was also using the Amsterdam Eyewitness Travel Guide)
23 Very helpful and inspirational!
This book combines the two things essential to a travel guide: 1. Helpful information 2. Content that gets you excited for your trip. I bought this book about a month before I went to Paris. Based on the book I planned on what area I would stay. (St. Germain de Pres) I ended up loving that area. After looking at the photos and reading the descriptions I was beside myself in anticipation for my trip. Once in Paris, the guide did not let me down. The metro map in the back was invaluable as well as the many maps contained in the book. Since I had studied the book so much before I left, I felt like I knew Paris like the back of my hand by the time I got there. A lot of the descriptions of things are no terribly in depth, but it does spend a lot of time on the Louvre and many other main attractions. But, if you are looking for adventure off the beaten path, this might not be your book. I also particularly liked the fact it gave you about five walking tours around Paris that could been done in 90 minutes where you cover a lot of ground.
24 Only Guide book I neede
I recently went to Paris this past summer. I don't speek French, nor am I seasoned fpreign traveler, but I had a great trip. This book was my only companion on this leg of my trip, and it was all I needed. It has everything from pulbic transportation maps, to a menu translator. I will use any of the DK publishing book on all international trip that I go on.
25 Buy this guidebook and use it.
Absolutely a blast to follow the walking tours and check off the items you have seen. I wouldn't have seen as much or had nearly as much fun if I didn't buy and USE this book.
I'd recommend bringing a small backpack with your camera, maps, raingear/warmer clothes and even a nicer change of clothes in case you find someplace a little nicer to eat at or visit.
If they make an Eyewitness Travel Guide for a city I'm touring, I buy it.
26 best recommendation I ever got
My friend once suggested this line of travel guides (when she was searching for one for Ireland) and I always kept in mind. Even thought I've been to Paris many times before, I still bought this book to see what other tidbits I might discover or re-discover. It's one of the best investments I made. I'm currently awaiting the arrival of my London guide. I know it'll be full of information about what's open when and whether or not to expect an enterance fee... And what to visit that isn't one of the usual, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety hot spots for tourists.
27 it was great
Eyewtiness Paris was my bible when i was visiting earlier this year. I carried it everywhere. The neighborhood maps with walking trails was really helpful so that i didnt miss a thing. plus they sort of took you off the beaten trail a little too. the only not-so-great thing about the book was that the street maps were a little hard to understand because they are on different pages and some streets are missing (small side streets) so i bought a real street map.... other than that, i plan to use eyewitness books for all my future traveling.
28 Vive la Paris
I lived in Paris for a year and was constantly looking for the best book to see Paris inside and out. My friend introduced me to this wonderfully illustrated and very informative book. I didn't leave home without it. It was the BEST way to see Paris and not be embarrased by not knowing all the customs of the French. The Eyewitness book even has simple French phrases in the back that I found very useful. You could not own a better book.
29 Heavy and and not economical
Get the Rick Steves' books for Paris and France. The Eyewitness books are pretty. They have shiny paper and color pictures. But they are heavy to lug around, especially if you are on foot (which is the best way to see Paris!). And the recommendations for hotel and accommodations are not for the budget minded, in my opion. A much better travel book is the Rick Steves' Paris 2000. Included in this book are walking tours of the neighborhoods and major museums. In those he gives background and history that you might find from a personal tour guide. Steves also makes recommendations for hotels that are very nice, clean and safe and reasonably priced (with excellent restaurants). I bought the Eyewitness book and left it in a hotel room in Paris because I was so sick of lugging it around and it added nothing to my trip that I didn't get from the Rick Steves book. Have I said enough? Skip Eyewitness unless you have a big budget and like to carry heavy books.
30 Don't leave home without it
Just got back from Paris (6-11-00). Took two travel books to Paris, this one and the Fodors. Should have left the Fodors at home. This book makes it easy to get around Paris. Great map in the back and easy to use Metro map and explanation on how to use the Metro. It breaks each area of Paris down and gives you historical information on the various buildings you will go to. Must have seen a few dozen people carrying the same book with them.
31 Great travel guide
One of the best travel books. The information is accurate and very useful. I was able to see the best of Paris with this book. Try one of the walking tours described in the book.
32 gorgeous but pricey
Without a doubt, this is one of the most beautiful guide books I've seen. The maps are clear and the pictures are gorgeous. I especially like how they map out little strolls for each major neighborhood of the city, indicating and describing all the sights like a personal tour guide. However, the hotels and the restaurants that are suggested are really pricey. If you're a starving student, like I am, or travelling on a limited budget, I'd suggest "lonely planet" or "let's go" travel guides. They don't have any lovely pictures, but your francs will stretch much farther.
33 Buy also "Knopf guide restaurants of Paris" ISBN: 067975578
If you want to get a warmful, visual approach for your next "aventures gastronomiques" in Paris.
34 Best Guide Book
I have the brand new year 2000 edtion of this book and am planning my 9th trip to Paris. I have compared the other guide books with this and find this is the one I'm taking with me. The maps are great. On some of the streets it actually shows you where the numbers begin, especially helpful on long streets, so you do not start at the wrong end. The pictures are great along with brief descriptions and layouts of the parks and famous buildings. Contrary to what I have read. the size is good with over 400 pages it is a compact, tightly bound book with a durable cover. The street guide in the back is wonderful when used inconjunction with the maps. As a travel agent, I recommend this book as most useful.
35 Beautiful
This is a gorgeous guide full of great pictures and wonderful street by street maps. It is useful in helping determine what you want to see, but not for getting around, finding places to stay or eat - strictly useful for site seeing only. However, combined with the Idiot's Guide to Paris and a good map - the City of Lights will be yours!
36 Suprisingly accurate - the best
On my trip to Paris, I found this book to be indispensible and carried it with me every day. I would recommend it (and already have to others and my library) for anyone visiting Paris for the first time.
37 This Is The One To Get
When you walk around the streets of Paris, this is the one guide that most of the tourists are carrying and reading.
38 Best Paris travel guide available today!
This is, without a doubt, the most useful and the most user-friendly travel guide to Paris available to the traveler today. If you visit Paris, this should be your travel companion!
39 Greatest Travel Guide Ever!
We have been using the Eyewitness Travel Guides for several years. The first we purchased was for our trip around the world and we bought one for our stop in Amsterdam. We has several different guides for the other stops on our trip but, none were as helpful and informative as the Eyewitness. We have since been to Venice, London and Paris and the Eyewitness Guides have always joined us in our travels and always will - they're priceless. We even brought one for New York to help us learn more about our town.
40 A Most Useful Guide
Found this to be the most useful guide to the City Of Lights. Illustrations are very helpful. Slips into a big pocket. Useful when used in conjunction with the Michelin maps. This book needs an update soon.
41 An excellent guide book!
I just returned from a trip to Paris and my husband and I loved this book. It is divided by areas of Paris which makes it very easy to use. While we were in Paris, we saw about 15 other groups carrying this book around, too!
42 best guidebook I have ever seen
I think this is the most easy to use and also the most beautiful guidebook to Paris. It was a real pleasure to use, and helped me to find the best places to see during my visit.
43 It was superb! The best travel guide !!!
I have traveled all over the world, this was truly wonderful
44 Invaluable asset and easy to pop into your pocket.
I have found this small book to be packed with easily accessible and easily understandable facts, figures and maps.So good in fact, that I also bought the Eyewitness guide to London and last week in Athens I was delighted to find an Eyewitness guide to Greece, Athens and the Mainland. I needed a map of the city of Athens and looked for one in the kiosk of the Grande Bretagne Hotel in the centre of Athens. You can imagine my delight and pleasure in finding one of my favourite 'Eyewitness Guides'. You may also imagine my horror and displeasure at being charged 10,000 drachmas--£20.00--(Yes, that IS right -I double checked) I had to drop the guide book like a hot potato saying that I'd wait until I went home where I could buy it for half that price! Disappointing that the Greeks think that they can fleece tourists in such a fashion. Beware, and be wiser than me--get your guide books BEFORE you go away!!
45 One of the Worst -- Inaccurate and Limited Information
I also purchased this guidebook based on good reviews I have read such as those above. I know Paris fairly well, but like to collect new guidebooks of the city to supplment my collection as I go almost yearly. This is one of the worst Paris guidebooks I have seen. I think it can only be considered good if one is impressed by color photographs, but do not know Paris well and want only a very limited tourist overview. Even then, this book has numerous inaccuracies in it and very limited information on hotels and restaurants. I wonder how well the authors even know Paris. As one example, in the section on using the metro and the various tickets/passes available, it makes numerous errors in one paragraph. First, it claims "the one-week card (carte hebdomadaire) gives unlimited travel in zones 1 and 2". Actually, it is not really called a "Carte Hebdomadaire", it is a Carte Orange for which you can buy either a weekly (ie, hebdomadaire) or a monthly ticket (mensuelle). In any case, it IS unlimited travel but one can buy it for as many zones as one wants, not just two. It gives virtually no information on the tourist metro pass (Paris Visite) except to say it exists (no prices, no zones, no comparison to others, etc.--as a matter of fact, this card is a poor deal for tourists but they aren't told that here). Then, it claims the "Carte Orange is a one-month card for all zones". This also is wrong. As noted, the Carte Orange can contain either a weekly or monthly ticket; like the weekly pass, the monthly ticket also can be bought for as many zones as you want (from 2-8), it is not automatically for "all zones". In a different section, it refers to a "carnet" as a "metro pass." This is wrong--it is not a pass, it is simply a packet of ten single metro tickets, which has a discounted rate for buying 10 at a time. Also, the carnet is not even mentioned in the basic section on metro passes/tickets, but elsewhere. This is just one example of the inaccurate information in this book, and metro fares and passes are the most basic information for travelers, and extremely easy information for travel guide authors to obtain. I can only imagine how they might botch up more complicated stuff. I also agree that their peculiar and arbitrary manner of dividing the city into their own named quarters (rather than using the official Paris arrondisement definitions) is ill-advised and confusing, because it does not conform to standard addresses and all available information on the city. Practically, their hotel and restaurant recommendations are quite limited compared to other guidebooks. In the entire city, they only list a couple hotels in a moderate budget category (eg, maybe $75-125 per night)--their hotel recommendations are definitely geared towards the expensive. Also, they give hardly any information on the hotels. Unlike most other good guidebooks, they include extremely superficial information on the history of Paris. In addition to these problems in accuracy and usefulness, the book is very heavy so you probably wouldn't want to carry it around with you (it isn't heavy due to content length, but due to the weight of the paper), plus the pages are rather narrow and an odd size so are hard to keep open and read. And, for all this, I think it is the most expensive guidebook to Paris by about $5-10. In sum, I think almost any other well-known name guidebook on Paris would be preferable for actual content, planning and value for the money. If one wants to spend the money for this as a nonessential edition for browsing at home, to enjoy the photos, it is adequate.
46 Most noticed travel guide in Paris
Excellent guide to city-between narrative and pictures. Most popular travel book noted on streets. Would prefer more walking tours.
47 Tres bien!
This is a great series with beautiful illustrations unmatched by the other guides. Gives practical information about the most romantic city in the entire world. Out of the multitude of travel guides available for Paris, this is the most useful. In fact, this whole series is quite good. Bring this as your one guide to Paris or good to read in your own living room if you can't make it over there.
48 This book didn't help us navigate Paris at all
I purchased this book because of all the rave reviews, and after the experience of trying to navigate Paris with it, felt I owed it to future travelers to give my input. This book was fine to read on the plane trip over, and the plane trip back, but if you are looking for a book to guide you through Paris pick up a different guidebook. The pictures were nice, but messy. The maps were awful. Cross referencing with other books was impossible.
49 All you need to see and get around Paris.
My wife and I just returned from 17 days in Paris and this was the only book we needed. This book is packed with information that is useful and easy to find. The street and train maps are great, the tips are useful and the pictures are wonderful. We carried two other books to Paris with us, but once there, we left those in our room and bought this book. If you are gong to Paris, get this book.
50 If you know NOTHING about Paris, this guide is okay.
This guide seems to be designed for the traveller who knows nothing about Paris. If you already know that in Paris you will eat croissants, see Notre Dame, and use French Francs, much of this guide will be useless to you. And though the book is full of pictures, they are so busy that they overwhelm the important information. Further, the book is divided into "quarters," which do not necessarily correspond to the Parisian arondissements; this makes cross-referencing between this book and any other nearly impossible.
51 This is the only book you need when traveling in Paris!
My husband and I just returned from Paris and, fortunately, our friend had this book to loan us while there. We don't usually buy travel books when traveling, as we like to explore on our own, but this book was a God-send. We carried it with us everywhere and used it each night to plan the next day. It had all the useful information, such as phone numbers, hours of operation, addresses, the only thing it lacked was approximate prices for the attractions. We would have liked to have seen these, because prices often determined our choices of visits. However, this book was excellent at helping us decide what areas were most interesting to us, tell us a little about the attraction or monument and give us some history at the same time! Highly recommended!
52 The ultimate, up-to-date travel guide to Paris
I just returned from a 10 day trip to Paris and cannot tell you the number of times we had this book in our hands, scouring the pages for those nooks and crannies of the city which we would have missed without the guide! How complete, how accurate, how easy to use. The maps were up to date. The descriptions of the sights in the city were filled with historical facts, as well as colorful pictures to whet your appetite. I would recommend anyone travelling to Paris to use this guide. It was the most popular guide we saw visitors using while touring the city.
53 The perfect Guide for the traveler that likes to plan ahead.
My wife and I went to paris with about 5 different books and about 6 different maps. Turns out this was the only one we really needed. We were able to find and do more in 1 week than anyone we have ever met. Including people who went for 3 weeks. This guide covers everything by district/quarters.
We never would have found the Catacombs without this - and I strngly recommend them. It also gives you a chance to make decisions ahead of time of what you would like to do and what you might like to do given the time. It is not exactly the perfect book because it does not always tell you the prices of museum passes and ticket prices. So I'll save you some time. Buy the Museum Carte at the very first place you go. This will get you into every single place and museum like thing you could wnat from the Louve, Musee De Orsey, Georges Pompedeau and even the Museum Rodin and Versailles!!!!. If you use it 3 times, you have saved money. Also, The museums have "Special" entrances and lines for Carte holders so keep your eyes open cause you can skirt the long long long lines and go on in. But make sure you have this book under your arm where ever you go.
54 Absolutly the Best travel guide
The eyewitness guides for the regions of France are the best. Everything is listed, from how to get there, what to do, and where to go. I love the cut away views, the colourful maps, and the reviews pointing out every detail. These books allow you to plan out every detail of your trip before you leave. Don't enter a foreign country without one.
55 Absolutely essential to any traveler going to Paris!
The D-K Eyewitness Guides are the most complete and beautifully done travel guides available. You will use them before your trip to plan what to see and do. You will use them on your trip for the marvelous 3-D maps and cross sections. You will use them for years afterward to remember your adventures. I anxiously await each new guide that is published!
56 Absolutely the best
This guide was our Bible in Paris last summer. It led us not only to the typical tourist sites, but pointed out places less known. The restaurant and accomodation info was wonderful, as was the historical section. The format is one other guides could only hope to copy...clear, concise and easy-to-use.
57 Absolutely the best book on Paris available!
This book is the only book you need. It has fanstastic maps to find your location anywhere. It have detailed descriptions of places that you want to see, not just summaries. Everything is divided by the quarters so you know where to go or stay.
58 Exceptionally well designed. A pleasure to read!
Even if you've always skipped the history sections of travel guides - you won't with this book. The authors deliver on Paris' history in fine doses so you don't get bothered by details but get a good feeling for the city's history. The graphics are outstanding!
59 Excellent!
The Eyewitness Paris Guide provided everything I needed during my trip. Its color photos, glossy pages, and descriptive narratives and maps lead me to all Paris had to offer. I referenced it at every opportunity and it never failed to provide accurate and valuable information. I Highly recommend it!
60 Fabulous Paris Guide
In a sea of dismal travel books, the Eyewitness Travel Guides published by Dorling Kindersley stand out like a lighthouse.
Last year we traveled to Paris and relied heavily on this Paris guidebook. Not only were the maps, directions, and recommendations absolutely perfect, but the high quality of this book and its absolute comprehensiveness (especially in light of its price) make it a must-buy. Unlike its drab Fodor's counterpart, beautiful images in this guide easily recall some of our best moments, making it a keepsake even after the trip. The flexible, plasticized cover also means it stays looking nice, even after spending all day in a crowded backpack.
All told, the perfect travel guide and another in a long line of excellent Dorling Kindersley books. A 10!
Dan Edelen
61 The ultimate toursits guide to Paris!
I took the Paris Eyewitness Travel Guide with me last summer when I visitied Paris for the first time. The travel guide has excellent descriptions of what to see and do in Paris and the hitory of the town. It includes maps to the quarters, and a very usefull Metro/RER map.
If a tourist were to find themself in Paris with no other information besides this book, he or she would be ok!
