Frommer's Paris 2010 (Frommer's Color Complete) Review

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(More customer reviews)Strap on the reading glasses, sorry this is a long review. I happen to love Paris and France. I lived there for two years long ago, and have visited many times. This past summer, 2009, we vacationed in Paris. I have opinions about Frommer's guide.
The Reader's Digest version - this is an excellent guide to Paris. It is probably one of the best written I've seen in a very long time. It is not as beautiful as the Paris (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE); there are few guide books as beautiful as this one. It's not as American as Rick Steves, who does write very practical guide books. It's not on the cheap side like Lonely Planet. To me, this book hits a sweet spot, includes luxury, middle of the road, and inexpensive. If there was one criticism, the photography / images are not nearly as beautiful as I'd like. Some of the page layouts are not super appealing.
It is really difficult to write a good guide book. There is so much information available on the internet that some would wonder, why do I even need a guide book? To me, this guide book represented a starting point. It discussed visiting the city, and pointed toward choices you might want to make. Helped narrow the infinite information that can be found on websites.
OK, buckle up, strap on the glasses. My biased view of this guide book, along with some of my personal advice about Paris, a city I love dearly.
Introduction to Paris, the first three chapters, balance the beauty of the city, the cautionary tales of visiting a huge city, and practical advice. It's some of the best balanced description of Paris I have ever read - I got the impression that Hemingway could be around every corner, but yet this is a city like any other, it has crime and problems; the travel needs to be aware and careful.
Darn Frommer's, some of my favorite quiet locations, nearly secret areas are listed. If too many people follow this advice, those places will lose their charm.
Chapter 4 describes some excellent itineraries that can be accomplished in one day each. To really do everything on these itineraries, you'll have to be really fit, the walks are very long and cover a ton of territory. The first 1 day, if you had only one day in Paris, this would be the one to see the most. The hard part of this visit is seeing the Louvre - there is no choice but to arrive before opening at 9AM. Unfortunately this makes for a fair amount of doubling back on the walk. Skip the Louvre inside, start at Place L'Etoile or the top of the Champs Elysee, and the itinerary makes total sense - actually finishing with dinner at Place des Vosages. The other itineraries are wonderful, and can be taken a piece at a time. Versailles is a tough visit, you have to count a fair amount of time to get there, and the gardens are huge. You could easily spend a whole day there. Frommer's itinerary that day includes 6 more stops. Better be really healthy for these three days.
Chapter 5 on accomodations - Frommer does an excellent job here describing hotels. There's an excellent discussion regarding where to stay - this a critical choice, so much of what you experience in Paris will be based on entering and leaving your hotel. Remember every day you are in Paris, you'll see this neighborhood several times. You might not stay in your room much, but you will see this neighborhood a lot. Choose wisely. I'm familiar with a few of the hotels listed and the descriptions are generally good. Use Frommer's to whet your appetite, then back your choice up with websites. You may find that spending more money to be in an area more to your liking will be money very well spent.
Restaurants - an excellent discussion of French cuisine, and eating habits (hours, what courses come when, and what they are called). I think you will be very surprised at this discussion, they do an excellent job describing French food - it is incredibly varied. As in the US, the food in New Orleans is very different from Texas from the East Coast, from the West Coast. Well the same type of regional influences exist in France. You'll want a bit of education to orient yourself. There is a brief section on, 'Can you eat badly in Paris?' The answer is emphatic yes - but they describe how to minimize the chances of that bad event. An odd omission for eating, Galaries Lafayette. There is one massive floor dedicated to food, the type you can take home and cook; and the prepared type that you can eat there at small tables. It's a bit like an American food court, but at a whole different level of quality. And it's cheap to boot.
Chapters 7 and 8 are really the heart of this book, the monuments, museums, and walking around Paris. The advice is excellent. The descriptions are spot on. Everything they wrote about in glowing language is wonderful. This advice can be followed almost blindly. If it sounds interesting to you from the description, it will likely be wonderful to visit. The walking tours are just about perfect. The three, plus the three earlier, 'if you have one day in Paris' tours will show you some of the best of Paris. Each has their specific flavor. The Montmartre is a bit on the night life side of Paris. The Quartier Latin is more leisurely and people watching oriented. The Marais is a view to a changing modernizing Paris - huge contrasts, and very relaxing walk. I'm fairly familiar with all these walks, and they are excellent recommendations.
Chapter 9 covers shopping. There is absolutely no debate, Paris is a city worth window shopping and spending time inside stores. Frommer's hits the high points, and generally gets this right. I'd like to add that Le Carrousel du Louvre is billed as a mall - sorry that's really wrong. There's nice stores here, the Virgin store is OK, but mall is a real misnomer. There's some shops here, but nothing to spend hours looking. You will be much better off on the Champs Elysee at that Virgin store, or Galleries Lafayteet / Au Printemps. If you want a real mall, you will have to exit the city and go to Velizy 2 (2, Avenue de l'Europe, 78140 Vélizy-Villacoublayý) - that is a real French mall.
Some advice for men on shopping - I love tools and hardware. BHV, a huge multi level store across from Hotel de Ville, has a basement full of the coolest tools, screws, wood... all those things that you'd never see as a tourist (electrical wiring and conduit is totally different there). The nice part, the rest of the store has clothes, perfume, and furniture - you can always meet your partner later on. Two huge recommendations on food - Fauchon and Hediard (they are right next to each other at Place de Madeleine. This is catering at it's highest.
Chapter 10 on night life. Well Paris sort of wakes up at 10PM. Walking outside is fabulous. Frommer's lists a decent number of clubs and bars. They also include information (and this is peppered throughout the book) about gay and lesbian locations. The descriptions are good. Double up with research on the internet. Paris has a lot of concerts, many American musicians tour and might show up at much smaller venues than in the US. Pariscope will usually list these. And the range Frommer's covers is from Opera all the way to tiny clubs.
Chapter 11, the last visiting chapter, is short trips outside of Paris. Of course Versailles is covered in great detail. Focus is on the gardens where it belongs. And Hells Kitchen fans can eat at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. The other destinations: Rambouillet, Fontainbleau, Chartres (if Catholic, an excellent place to attend church), Giverny, and a very good description of Disneyland Paris.
There are the perfuntory phrases, and fast facts chapters. Nothing amazing here.
The book includes a map of Paris. This is one of the strangest, most ill conceived maps I've ever seen. The map is bound into the book. You actually have to cut it out with scissors or a knife. Once out, it is a very poor map of Paris printed on heavy paper stock (that's nice), but is just a small portion of the city. You would be very hard pressed to navigate Paris with this map. A free map from a hotel is better. If you love maps as much as I do, there is a burgundy book about 2 inches thick that has every single street in Paris, along with a huge fold out of the entire city. Buy that map at a store in Paris. This laminated map is a better choice than the map in this book (Streetwise Paris Laminated City Center Street Map). This is a better alternative with most of the detail (Michelin Paris Pocket Atlas Map No. 11 (Michelin Maps & Atlases)).Some advice that I might not agree with.
Cell phone use. They do warn that a US phone Roaming in Europe can be very expensive (upwards of $1 per minute no matter where you are calling). But they leave off the iPhone / data usage issue (many AT&T customers coming home to thousands in data bills) and the option of buying a SIM card in France (your phone will have to be unlocked before leaving the US, every phone except an iPhone will be unlocked by your carrier for free).
There really wasn't a discussion, even brief about wine. Most Americans tend to think mostly of the grape first, and then the growing region; 'I love a Cabernet from Napa.' This does not translate at all in France. Wine is first thought of by growing region and almost as a side note the grape. Where we grow up thinking grape, Merlot, fruity, light, and then sometimes the region. The French think of the region first, Beaujoulias, fruity, light wine, and then sometimes the grape. So asking for a Merlot in a restaurant might not be...Read more›

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