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Frommer's Paris 2010 (Frommer's Color Complete Guides) |  | Authors: Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince
Publisher: Frommers
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
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Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 6014
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/Map
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0470470674
Dewey Decimal Number: 914
EAN: 9780470470671
ASIN: 0470470674
Publication Date: September 28, 2009
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Amazon.com Review
Discover The Best of Paris
Content from Frommer's Paris 2010 Discovering the City of Light and making it your own has always been the most compelling reason to visit Paris. If youâre a first-timer, everything, of course, will be new to you. If youâve been away for awhile, expect changes: Taxi drivers may no longer correct your fractured French, but address you in Englishâtantamount to a revolution. More Parisians have a rudimentary knowledge of the language, and France, at least at first glance, seems less xenophobic than in past years. Paris, aware of its role within a united Europe, is an international city. Parisians are attracted to foreign music, videos, and films, especially those from America. Though Paris is in flux culturally and socially, it lures travelers for the same reasons as always. Youâll still find such classic sights as the Tour Eiffel, Notre-Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Coeur, and all those atmospheric cafes, as well as daringly futuristic projects such as the Grande Arche de La Défense, the Cité des Sciences et de lâIndustrie, the Cité de la Musique, and the Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand. Donât forget the parks, gardens, and squares; the Champs-Elysées and other grand boulevards; and the river Seine and its quays. Parisâs beauty is still overwhelming, especially at night, when it truly is the City of Light.
Paris's Top Destinations by Category
The Most Unforgettable Travel Experiences | 
The Best Splurge Hotels | 
The Most Unforgettable Dining Experiences | 
The Best Things to Do for Free (or Almost) | 
The Best Museums | 
The Best Neighborhoods for Getting Lost |
Product Description
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
 Frommer's Hits The Sweet Spot On Paris October 24, 2009
Daniel G. Lebryk
34 out of 35 found this review helpful
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 well received, or undertsood. Granted, Frommer's can't be everything for everyone. I would have thought a wine discussion would be helpful.
The Eiffel tower discussion is decent - yes approach it from afar and slowly, it is gorgeous seen this way. But they really get the amount of time to actually go to the top of this structure very very wrong. This can be a three hour ordeal. And it is not like Disney with neat lines and entertainment along the way. No it is cramped beyond imagination, not air conditioned, and the lines inside and outside can be horrible. My best advice to you, skip going up the tour, the area around it is infinitely more interesting. If you insist, only go to the first level. The view is not that different at the top, and you will shave at least 1 hour of the visit. Notre Dame is a much more beautiful view of the city.
On shopping, the flagship Adidas and other sporting goods stores weren't mentioned. Be very careful in these stores. Most of what is obscenely expensive there is 100% easily available on line in the US for significantly less. That is true for an amazing number of things in France. You can very easily overpay.
An Amazing Guide to Paris January 4, 2010
Rebecca Johnson (Washington State)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Some establishments in France might not accept your credit card unless you have a computer chip imbedded in it." ~ pg. 72
There are two books I'd recommend before taking a trip to Paris and this is one of them. The other book is Paris (DK EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE). The DK guide is superior as far as pictures go but I liked the "Where to Dine" section better in the Frommer's guide. This book has interesting facts sprinkled throughout. You will read about the world's first movie being shown in Paris on December 28, 1895. There is also some information about Hemingway and lots of other famous people and where they ate when visiting Paris. There is a section on movies that gave me some ideas for what to watch while at home.
I wish I'd had this book the first time I went to Paris because it has some good walking tours in it. I took a weekend tour to Paris so reading this book showed me what I missed. I would still take a tour the first time because it is less complicated and you get to see all the main sites in a short amount of time. I think a week in Paris would have been better and with this book you can plan out your days more easily. This guide also comes with a pullout map of Paris.
Some of the highlights in this book include day trips. You probably don't want to miss seeing the Chateau de Versailles or Disneyland Paris. You have to visit Paris once in your life it is an amazing place to visit. So I'd suggest getting the DK book and this book to really plan out your trip effectively.
~The Rebecca Review
An excellent tome of information for the first time visitor to Paris October 24, 2009
N. Hawkins (Chicago)
I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not normally a fan of Frommer's books. To me, they've always been dry tomes of information that are geared towards people who are not big travelers. I also tend to think that Frommer's is more geared towards an older demographic than myself.
I was really impressed: Frommer's Paris 2010 was actually a pleasant read through. Instead of a dull presentation of information, the guide seems to have been written with some passion about the city. It got me excited about wanting to go back. I really enjoyed the color photos, and despite being to Paris a handful of times and thought that I had a good overview of the city, I realized that I didn't (hence wanting to go back, if not for the food alone.)
If you're going to Paris for the first time, you can't go wrong with using the Frommer's guide as your primary source of information. The only downside is that a book with this much information won't fit in a good pocket, so I'd recommend buying this along with Top 10 Paris (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides).
Paris parfait! October 24, 2009
D. Tobin (Northern VA, USA)
I love everything about Paris. Absolutely everything! The food, the language, the architecture, the culture...you name it. My most recent trip was two years ago and I'm hoping to go again in the Spring. In anticipation, I perused Frommer's guide to see what has changed, what's recommended, etc., and was pleasantly surprised. I didn't buy Frommer's on my last trip, but perhaps I should have. I actually agree with the "Best of Paris in 1/2/3 Days" section, and I often do not concur with guide book suggestions. The description of the various arrondissments was very helpful (although they left out one of my favorite hotel finds, Best Western Richepanse in the 8th - reasonable and exceptionally well located & appointed), and Laduree wasn't given nearly enough respect as THE place to enjoy pasteries and cafe. The sections on the various museums provide enough info that individual guides won't be necessary, unless you plan on spending the entire day(s) in them (the Louvre would require a full set of encylopdias, so be prepared to purchase something more detailed if that is what you want. There are marvellous ones for sale at the Louvre providing a wide range and depth of detail so you don't need to buy one before you go unless you want to research your visit ahead of time.)
It would be impossible to provide an exhaustive guide to Paris, or any major city for that matter, in 425 pages, but Frommers does an admirable job. The maps are clear and concise (there is also a foldout map), the range of information is good, and the whole thing will fit in most purses. Excellent photos make the book enjoyable to look through as well. This may be the only guide you need to buy for Paris.
Bon voyage!
Top-notch guide for planning your trip to Paris November 13, 2009
Danielle (Illinois)
I definitely have a love affair with Paris, France. And I'm not the only one. The City of Lights holds so many captive with its beautiful architecture, delicious food, and its diverse culture. The Frommer's 2010 Guide for Paris is a fantastic book for those who are planning to visit one of the most gorgeous places in the world. I found the guide to be very informative.
Here's what I liked about the Frommer's Guide book:
-The book gives a quick overview at the history of Paris and how it became the city it is today. Not so great if you want a deep and in-depth look at Paris history but a good overview on some of its history.
-It tells you what you need in order to come into France. Also it tells what you can bring with you to France and what you can bring out of France. For example, if you are in France for more than 48 hours, you can take home up to $800 of merchandise duty-free if you are a US citizen. They also tell you the currency exchange, which can be helpful to any shopper.
-They tell you what areas to avoid in Paris, when to avoid them, and how to protect yourself from being preyed upon. Being a tourist in a foreign city can be hard so it's great to read the tips for protecting yourself so your trip to Paris can be totally free of that kind of stress.
-There's a great list of places to stay and eat on any kind of budget. All you have to do is pick where in Paris you want to stay at and they'll give you options. The dining list that is given is great and they give you a lot of different options to choose from.
-They give lists for just about anything that you want to look for or at in Paris. Literary landmarks, churches, cemeteries , jazz clubs, dance clubs, opera, theater, they even list places if you feel the need to work out while you are in Paris.
There is something listed for just about everyone's interests.
-They give a lot of different stores for your shopping needs. You're bound to find whatever you are looking for if you use the list provided in this guide book.
-The museum list is pretty good in explaining most of the museums in Paris and what they specialize in.
-They give you an idea of what your itinerary could be for however long you are staying in Paris. They give ideas for one, two, or three days so if you are only staying in Paris for a few days, they give you an idea of what you could and should see in that time period.
-In the back of the guide, they give you a list of some of the French words and phrases you might need while you are in Paris. Great for any tourist who is not fluent in French. Also provided in the back of the book is a map that can be taken out so if you need to find out where to go while you out and about, you'll be able to find it using the map.
Overall, I found the Frommer's Paris 2010 Guide to be very informative about everything a person needs to know about Paris and how to plan. I would definitely recommend this guide book to anyone who is planning their trip to Paris. Bon Voyage!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
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