[.ca] Rick Steves' France & Paris City Map Planning Map (ISBN 1598800515)

Won't be taking this book with me:
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....:
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 $$$:
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.

Great descriptions but limited coverage:
I brought this book with me on a recent trip to Paris, the Loire valley and Brittany. Whenever we could, we used the recommendations for places to go and stay and eat from the book and never came away dissapointed. The book does a great job of getting you to the best sights and avoiding the crowds. The only bad thing I can say about it is the coverage is not very good. There are many cities that there is no information on making this not a good resource for answering the question "Gee, I wonder what is in this little out of the way town we are driving thru". If you stick to the big sights however, this is not a problem. You can also use this book to determine what the big sights are.