Customer Reviews

Eyewitness Travel Guides Paris

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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!