Paris (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)

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.


Visually appealing but no hard-core info.   November 7, 2003
Nacozari (all over the place)
72 out of 87 found this review helpful

I think the title of my review wraps it all up: the eyewitness guides are a work of graphic art. Their highlight is probably the great work on the maps, both small and large scale, which are of great help as you navigate around the city looking for sights. As a tool for reaching all of the sights you want to see, I would say that the Eyewitness Guide is among the best, with its street map, neighborhood maps and Metro/subway guide. In addition to this, as another positive comment I would say that it is a great guide to take on a trip if you don't have much time and you need information presented in an easy-to-read, simple manner. The drawings and photos, and the way they are laid out, is very appealing.

The advantages stop there, however. If you really want to get to know a city, you simply need more in-depth historical and cultural information on the sights you are seeing. Most of the locations described in the Eyewitness Guide do not stretch beyond a paragraph or two, which is quite superficial in my opinion. If you really want to know about the history behind the church, monument, museum or park you have traveled so far to see, you will definitely need another guidebook to give you any kind of detail. This flaw becomes far worse when you read the sections on sights outside of the city or in the suburbs (which are many!). The descriptions become utterly superficial.

Harsh critique also for the hotel and restaurant information, which is limited to places designed for the rich and famous, or at least the very upper of the upper-middle class. The best guides give you a little info. on all styles of lodging and food, from low budget to luxury, but these guides make little effort to do so, and even the information on the laps of luxury is limited to little symbols, instead of providing descriptions like other guides do.

With this combination of characteristics, I think Eyewitness is good to take along for a short trip in which you have little time to spend seeing the city and you don't really care about getting any deep information on what you're seeing. Otherwise, keep looking for another guidebook.


Just got back from Paris, This book is all you need   March 28, 2003
C. Mar (Leesburg, VA United States)
42 out of 44 found this review helpful

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!


Outstanding   June 21, 2003
saliero (NSW Australia)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

...P>It is outstanding. The illustrations are excellent, the maps accurate and detailed. The only better map is the No 2 Plan to public transport available free from Metro stations, which shows metro , RER and bus routes with named streets, and the more expensive book maps by arrondissement available in Paris.

But unless you want to cart around two books, the maps in this volume are excellent (warning: there are a few places they DON'T cover, so if you are planning visits to some of the less touristed arrondissements, you will need a map book as well).

I used this in conjunction with Fodor's Around Paris With Kids, and together they covered everything we needed as a family.

The house style of Eyewitness Guides is now well-known, and this volume is as good as, if not better, than any. You really can't go wrong if you pack this. It will even make you want to go places you might otherwise have dismissed.


Make Eyewitness essential part of your travel fun   May 1, 2004
Jie Yin (Evanston, IL USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

DK's Eyewitness Travel Guides are our best travel companion during our tour of Europe. Full of tips, pictures, maps, site info, history, local reference ... every page is not only helpful but beautiful. The layout anf format is very innovative and reader friendly, a ture standing out from any other travel books. It was interesting to see that almost everywhere we went, we saw other people (tourists apparently) holding and checking the same DK book on the street.
The coverage is comprehensive and growing year after year, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice ... every city we went have its own Eyewitness serie. We studied them before our trip, consulted them during our trip, and kept them as memo and photo book after our trip. They are simply essential part of the travel fun.

I recommend buying indiviual city/area book wherever possible instead of the country book. For example, buy Rome, Florence, and Venice books instead of Eyewitness Italy (unless your destination doesn't have its own Eyewitness). That way you get more detailed and targeted info.