Atlas France Ref. 20197XB 2009, 7e (Michelin France Tourist & Motoring Atlas (spiral))

Comment: The low star rating has to do with Amazon's s l o w shipping. (The quality of the item is unknown.) This road-map travel atlas has a 1--3 month delay in shipping from Amazon! Most folks order travel items shortly before an anticipated trip. It does no good to get the atlas for use on a driving trip after we have returned home.

Since it is published in 2009, why is there such a delay??? You should check shipping
dates carefully or else you will be receiving materials after you are back from your trip!

Comment: While I'm still 3 weeks away from actually driving in France, this book was more than excellent for planning my routes. It is so well laid out you would have thought the Swiss had done it rather than the French!! However, if you want something quick and easy, this probably is NOT the best offering. As France has many, many secondary and tertiary roads with signs directing you to Paris or "Other Directions" only, careful pre-planning is a necessity. The book was purchased used but was in EXCELLENT condition upon receipt.

I'll update my review in July if I have anything significant to add.

Comment: Like all Michelin Guides, this one is very usuful to the foreign driver. Sometimes the GPS fails (it has already happened to me twice!), and, if you don't want to waste lots of your precious time trying to find the right way... always have a Michelin Guide close to you! It saves time, money and lots of stress.

Comment: The atlas rates 4 to 5 stars, but is useless, as the roads are so poorly marked in France. What good does a great map do you if the more rural roads are so poorly maked? We would still be at the train station had the car we rented not had a GPS. We would just punch in the hotel or tourist site we wanted to visit and the GPS took us straight there with no hitches. So you can buy this atlas as a "backup", but it is really not necessary with a good GPS.

Comment: I've visited France a number of times. Each visit I've motored around the country using a bunch of Michelin fold-up maps (and the Michelin Guide for city maps) to show me the way. However, driving around with huge maps unfolded in the car has always been less than ideal. This Atlas effectively contains ALL the country maps, plus some city maps, at the same level of detail as the fold-up maps AND it's much less cumbersome. Plus it only costs about as much as two of the fold-up maps -- and to cover the entire country would require at least 20 fold-up maps. This Atlas is a real bargain just considering the maps alone, but it also has an index that allows one to locate a particular city/town to a particular page -- something that's not possible using the big maps. This Atlas is a must if you're going to do much driving around France -- GPS notwithstanding.