 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling in the City of Light—Paris.
With the self-guided tours in this book, you’ll explore the grand Champs-Elysées, the eye-popping Eiffel Tower, and the radiant cathedral of Notre-Dame. Learn how to save money and avoid the lines at the Louvre and Orsay Museums. Enjoy the ambience of Parisian neighborhoods, and take a day trip to the glittering palace of Versailles, or to the Champagne-soaked city of Reims. Then grab a café crème at a sidewalk café and listen to the hum of the city. You’ll see why Paris remains at the heart of global culture.
Rick’s candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants in delightful neighborhoods. You’ll learn how to navigate the Paris Métro, and which sights are worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket. |
Average Customer Rating:   Rick Steves' Paris What else can I say 20 Plus years of travel experience has made Mr. Steves the man to go to. The book is everything you need to know. Nuff said. Rick Steves' Paris Thanks for the helpful tips, Steve. Will put them to good use.
Book received in excellent shape. Poorly organized, the worst of Steve's guides If you know Paris well, Steve's "Paris" might be useful. Might. Only "might" because his recommendations are sorted by neighborhoods. Worse yet, some "neighborhoods," like the centrally located Opéra, are given short shrift. The entertainment/nightlife section/s are also skimpy. For once the "F" gides -- Fodor, Frommer -- and others are far better than Steve's; and such on-line guides as Virtual Tourist and Trip Advisor are also more informative and reliable. Steves's Paris is virtually worthless. You Still Need Another Book My wife and I bought two books to Paris with us. Rick Steves book and the Travelling Professor's Guide to Paris.
Rick Steves book has EVERYTHING in it. So, if you need to know about the Rocky Horror Picture Show (page 448) or staying in a Youth Hostel (I am 54 years old) or even where to find a public urinal (page 300) and you want to carry around a 617 page book with you, Rick Steves Paris is what you should buy.
However, the other book we used easily fit in my wife's purse and it had everything we needed to know in a book that was about 1/4 of the size of Rick Steves book.
My assessment: Rick Steves book is good but it has way too much useless stuff in it. Happy with my first Rick Steves guidebook purchase! Although I use Amazon reviews for most of my buying research, this is one of the handful of times I feel compelled to put in my 10 cents. My friend and I went to Paris a couple months ago - my first time, her second time. Our edition, purchased in December 2009, had no publishing mistakes. Despite being tempted to buy the full-color Fodor's Paris 2010 guide, I eventually decided to give Rick Steves' hand-drawn maps and self-guided museum tours a shot.
My friend and I are very glad I did. We dragged this book all over Paris with us in a small backpack purse. We were able to find almost everything we needed in the book, no matter where we were, whether it be checking on hours/maps for a museum or looking for restaurant recommendations while walking down Rue Mouffetard/around Versailles. We liked the doing-as-the-French-do approach to the guidebook, e.g. Metro etiquette (pp. 30-31) and Parisian cuisine explanations (pp. 387-397). Back at our hotel, while one of us was napping or in the shower, the other was often chuckling over Rick Steves' commentary - learning more about things we'd seen the day before or preparing for the day to come. We used the book so much that my friend has decided to buy a copy (and a small backpack purse to carry it in) for her next trip to Paris!
A few tips:
1) On "What the Paris Museum Pass Covers" (p. 43), it is not mentioned that the pass does NOT include the Versailles audioguide. (There's a brief blurb in the Versailles Day Trip chapter, but we didn't see it until we were already on the train there. Also, not sure if the increase in audioguide price from 6 to 7 euros is recent or seasonal.) Be sure to download the free audioguide from Rick Steves' website. Aside from the continued savings, our iPods would have been easier to wear than the clunky things we rented at the Chateau.
2) A bit light on restaurant recs, so you may want to research on [...]paris, [...], or other favorite chow review website, but for our needs, it was nice to have some direction than no direction at all.
3) I don't know how the lodging recs are since we were traveling on my friend's hotel points, but someone we ran into while at the Eiffel said that there are some lovely, affordable B&B's in the area which Rick Steves doesn't seem to have any advice on (just hotels, hostels, and apartments), so maybe worth researching elsewhere?
By the way, a funny thing happened on the way back to our hotel one night. While crossing the Place de la Concorde, we passed someone looking through HIS copy of Rick Steves' guide. Maybe other people had their guidebooks in their warm jackets, but that was the only one we saw actually IN USE by someone other than us!
I can't wait to return to Paris some day to check out the rest of the book I didn't get to visit this trip! |  |
Select button not working? 
