|
Rick Steves' France 2008 (Rick Steves) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Rick Steves, Steve Smith
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy Used: $0.74
You Save: $21.21 (97%)
New (30) Used (22) from $0.74
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 324586
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Pages: 732
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 4.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1566918553
Dewey Decimal Number: 914.40484
EAN: 9781566918558
ASIN: 1566918553
Publication Date: October 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to changing lives through the power of work. The organization offers a wide range of employment and training programs free of charge to assist those with disabilities and other barriers to employment.
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Rick Steves doesn't just list where to travel in Europe — he leads travelers through the "back door" and reveals how to give every journey an extra, more authentic dimension. He shows travelers how to delve into European culture, make friends with the locals, and experience each region's natural wonders — economically and hassle free. Rick Steves' France 2008 is no exception, covering Paris, Provence, and the French Riviera. Completely revised and updated, this guide includes opinionated coverage of both famous and lesser-known sights, friendly places to eat and sleep, suggested day plans, walking tours and trip itineraries, and clear instructions for smooth travel anywhere by car, train, or foot. America’s number one authority on travel to Europe, Steves' time-tested recommendations for safe and enjoyable travel in Europe have been used by millions of Americans in search of their own unique European travel experience.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 You're going to LOVE FRANCE! September 23, 2004
Richard R. Carlton (Ada, MI United States)
53 out of 80 found this review helpful
I've made >20 visits to France all together. Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!
Rick Steves' books are not recommended. They may be an interesting read but their helpfulness is very poor. They don't do well on updates, transportation details, or anything but the first-time-tourist routine and even that is somewhat superficial on anything but the mega-major sites.
Michelin
Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.
Fodor's
Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what:
The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide
MapGuide
MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the Metro. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the center of the city.
Time Out
The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!
Blue Guides
Without doubt, the best of the walks guides.... the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.
Let's Go
Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what:
Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.
Frommer's
These are time tested guides that pride themselves on being updated annually. Although I think the guides below provide information that is in more depth or more concise (depending on what the guide is known for), if your main concern is that the guide has very little old or outdated information, then this would be a good guide for you.
 Won't be taking this book with me January 6, 2003
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
The descriptions in this books are very good and he makes many good recommendations for sites, hotels, and restaurants. However, I think this book left out a lot of wonderful destinations (such as Fontainebleau, Aix-en-Provence, Dijon, etc.) and lacks the detailed maps that can be found in other French guidebooks. What he does put in this book is very good, but he could have added a lot more to it. I was less pleased with this guidebook than I have been with some of Rick Steves' other books.
Superb for first-time travellers.... January 19, 2003
Mr. D. S. Stadler (London, UK)
23 out of 26 found this review helpful
I haven't seen the 2003 edition (my latest is 2001) but I would be shocked if Steves has cut Dijon out of the book, as it was in previous editions. This is a great starting point for a trip to France, but it's predecessor was a book about the best 2-22 days in France and I think it shows.A marked problem with the Steves guides is that his guided tours businesses tend to fill up his top-rated hotels in many cities so that guidebook customers cannot get in. I encountered this myself in Bacharach in the Rhineland and in Venice. Frustrating. That said, he is an excellent writer and the Rick Steves guides, unlike the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide series, do tend to discriminate between the top-flight and the ordinary. Unfortunately the Steves guides also miss things that way. I've never been able to understand why Rothenburg is in the German guide instead of any number of other German cities such as Bamberg or Schwabisch Hall for example, which possess similar ambiance without the touristic hordes. Nor do I necessarily agree with his choices in the Dordogne. I use the Steves Guides as a starting point, then branch out and do my own research.
A Carbon-Copy of the 2002 book for more $$$ June 6, 2003
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
I was surprised how little new content there was. I returned the book and took mine from last year (2002) and still discovered all new things in its suggestions. Don't waste the money on the latest when it's not the greatest. 2003 and 2002 are created equal. Whoever decided to put out a new book each year so we'd get rid of the old and get the new one is CRAZY! I understand updates every few years, but there was not enough difference to spend $... on.
Not for a person going by rail! March 19, 2005
Karen Penate (Toronto, Canada)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I absolutely hate to give a Rick Steve's book a bad review but in this case I am going to have to. I will preface this however that if you have access to a car this book is proably great for you!
AND therein lies the main difficulty with this book. Most independent (and in my case young) travelers that visit Europe do so via rail. Why not? The service is good in most places and absolutely top notch in others (i.e.: Switzerland). It's also affordable and allows you to get to many places at a relatively inexpensive price.
This books, however, seems to ignore the rail traveler and focus instead on the person with a car or the person who wants to go and take a lot of local tours. For example, he'll list places in the Dordogne and then inform you that most of them are only accessible by car. Ditto for Provence. He'll also list cute little hotels and again tell you they are only accessible by car. He even lists a whole bunch of recommended auto routes. In addition, because he leaves out certain places that are easily accessible by train (i.e: Aix) the rail traveler feels left out!
That would be all good and fine if that's what one had come to expect from Rick Steves -- but at least in my case it is not! I have used the Rick Steves books before and I LOVED them! In fact I can HIGHLY recommend "Best of Europe" and "Mona Winks" (believe the title has changed). Those books were great. Serioulsy, Mona Winks made Florence come alive for me. We would read it in every museum we visited. And Best of Europe led me to some of the most fabulous places -- including Gimmelwald. But what I really liked is that those books really felt as though they were meant for a rail traveler.
I've bought Rick Steve's France 2005 but I've also come to the conclusion that it's not for me. If at all possible I will be returning it!
That is not to say however that I won't be taking my Best of Europe or Mona Winks books with me -- I wouldn't leave home without them!
|
|
|
|
| |
