The Rough Guide to France

View other editions of The Rough Guide to France.
View books by David Abram, Andrew Benson, Ruth Blackmore, Brian Catlos, Hugh Cleary.

Very well written - Rated
A very well written book and guide to France. It has great advice on eating out. banking, driving and even buying or renting a home. Plus all the hot spots and nice places to visit off the main track.

Probably the best guide to France - Rated
At least, having compared it to the Lonely Planet guide, I prefer this one. There is a lot of overlap between the two - many of the same restaurants, bars, hotels, tourist attractions etc are mentioned - but I find the information in the Rough Guide fuller and more useful. Although exactly the same size, it packs in over 300 more pages. The index is more useful, and some of the smaller places that were of interest to me were indexed only in the Rough Guide. I also found the town and area maps in the Rough Guide clearer, though this may be a matter of opinion. France is a huge country with a lot to see and do. Like another reviewer, I had my doubts as to whether it would be possible for one book to do it justice, but this book seems to. There are also Rough Guides to the individual regions of France, and the truly dedicated francophile might prefer to go for these, but for the average, occasional visitor I think that the one volume Rough Guide to France will do nicely.

No help with deciding where to go - Rated
This might be a good guide if you already know whch places you're going to visit - then you could maybe use this guide to decide what to see and where to stay when you get there. But it's no good if you want to decide which towns and regions to visit. Each section starts and ends with detail, detail about the town's main sites and hotels and estaurants, so it feels like you're reading a 1000 page shopping list.

For me what it needs is an intro of one or two pages on each main town with an impresionistic overview of whether it's a good place to go and the good points and bad points. Preferably with more photos.

Detailed, up-to-date and consistently reliable - Rated
Initially, I thought that France couldn't be summed up in one book and certainly would not go in to as much depth as separate publications on different parts of France (e.g. Rough Guide to the Loire etc.)- but this guide is one of the most detailed and reliable sources I've ever used.

Although information is condensed - the guide comprehensively covers both the large city areas (rigorously) and the smallest of villages (with useful information and pointers of where to find more information)

The format of the guide is the same as that of previous publications - which, is helpfully easy to navigate.

The book is thorough and up-to-date - with no mistakes (based on my trips since I have bought the book) and without doubt should be an essential part of your hand luggage!