Knopf Guide: Paris - Knopf Guides

Product Review

"Combines the beauty of a coffee-table tome with the hard facts and compact size of a traditional guidebook." -- Vogue

A city of incomparable beauty, culture and history, Paris has enchanted writers from Balzac to Hemingway and artists from Monet to Picasso. Paris is the place travelers return to year after year -- to revisit favorite cafes, museums, parks and palaces, to take in the art and architecture, fragrance and couture, music and cuisine. Discover the "city of lights."

Sample the sights and sounds of Paris, from the gloriously restored Marais district to historic Left Bank streets with their irresistible antique shops. Visit the places you have always heard about: the Pantheon, burial site of Voltaire, Hugo and Rousseau; Notre-Dame, masterpiece of Gothic architecture and haunt of the fictional Quasimoto; the Paris Opera, with its glittering chandeliers and resplendent ceiling painted by Chagall. Go underground and explore the famous catacombs or venture out to the celebrated sites nearby, including Versailles, Vaux-le-Viocomte and Chantilly. Discover the romance of Paris with detailed itineraries to guide you through one of Europe's most beloved cities.

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review

(12 customer reviews)

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

1/2 of the must have duo, March 16, 2002

Stephen McHenry (Olney, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) (Paperback)

If you are going to Paris, this is one of the two books that you must have as a minimum. It is gorgeous, lush, dense with illustrations. Knopf does the best job on items like flora, fauna, architecture, history, art, how the city has been seen by others, its fashion legacy, street life, medieval influence, sub-cultures, music, and so on, each topic at least a two page spread that is always satisfying to the eyes.
A guided walking tour is the standard Knopf format for revealing the city, as opposed to the Eyewitness itemized number format. The Eyewitness guide is the other half of the pair that you must have to visit Paris, each complementing the other rather than competing. This Knopf guide has some gorgeous pull out maps/pages in the middle of the book that are really great.
The Knopf weakness is in it's ability to help you plan: There is a wonderful diagram of the Catacombs, on a fold out page showing details about the fascinating sites beneath the city, with pictures of...Read more

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Must Have Book, July 20, 2002

Robert F. Weir "robfweir" (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) (Paperback)

The trouble with most travel books is that if you don't have the most recent edition, the information is probably out of date. The beauty of this book on Paris is that there is information on the culture, the cuisine, the history, the art, with a small, very small section on hotels and restaurants. This is not just a great book to prepare you for your trip to Paris, this is a book for a student of the city.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

The real Paris, June 21, 2000

Angela S. Fortezza-Soto (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knopf Guide: Paris (Knopf Guides) (Paperback)

This guide is wonderful for anybody who wants to see the true city beyond the modern facade of fast food joints and chain stores. It will give you great insights into the history of Paris, without endless boring lists of hotels and restaurants. There is so much you might miss otherwise, and it would be a shameful waste of time to go there without fully appreciating all the secrets, legends, gossip and wonderful stories. And to read what the writers think of Paris, and how the artists see it....it makes the city come to life. If you want maps and lists, get another guide. If you want to know what you're looking at, get this one!