France

Streetwise Paris Map - Laminated City Street Map of Paris, France - with integrated metro map including lines and stations

Streetwise Paris Map - Laminated Center City Street Map of Paris, France - Folding pocket size travel map with integrated metro map including lines & stations

This map covers the following areas:
Main Paris Map 1:14,000
Paris Metro Map
Map of France

Rick Steves' Paris 2008 (Rick Steves)

Rick Steves, author of 21 guidebooks and host of the television series Travels in Europe with Rick Steves, has spent 100 days a year traveling Europe, every year, since 1973. If any American knows Paris, he does, and his self-imposed mission is to make the city just as accessible to those of us who don't have the good fortune to spend months there at a time.

In his amiable, informed, and ruthlessly candid way, Steves focuses on the best--including nice places to stay and eat that give lots in the way of character and take relatively little in the way of francs. He suggests walking tours, museums, and itineraries that include both famous landmarks and little-known finds. He knows it all: art galleries and crêpe stands, street cafés and romantic neighborhoods, activities for kids, and great places to shop. Most importantly, he knows how Parisians live, and his guide provides the best information to let you experience not just the sights of Paris, but Parisian life as well. --Stephanie Gold

Quiet Corners of Paris

More than eighty of the loveliest, most tranquil, and sometimes hidden places in Paris are celebrated in this charming guidebook

Quiet Corners of Paris is a beautifully illustrated peek into eighty-one often overlooked, always beautiful, locales: hidden villas, winding lanes, little-known 19th-century passages, serene gardens, and cobblestone courtyards. Some of the places have breathtaking views, others are filled with historic and architectural details, from stone archways, garden follies, boxwood mazes, ornamental statuary, stained glass, and Renaissance fountains. Follow a stone path under a trellis of blossoms or wander through a gate to discoverÉ

Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris

Clotilde Dusoulier, a native Parisian and passionate explorer of the city’s food scene, has won a tremendous following online with her insider reports and wonderful recipes on her blog, www.chocolateandzucchini.com. Her book, Chocolate and Zucchini, introduced her to a wider, equally enthusiastic audience.

Now in Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris, Clotilde reveals her all-time favorite food experiences in her native city. She takes us on a mouthwatering tour of the restaurants, markets, and shops she loves the most: from the best places to go for lunch, tea, or a glass of wine, to “neo bistros” and the newest places to find spectacular yet affordable meals. Packed with advice on everything from deciphering a French menu to ordering coffee correctly, this book is like having Clotilde as a personal guide. A dozen tempting recipes are also included, shared or inspired by Clotilde’s favorite chefs and bakers.

For first-time visitors and seasoned travelers alike, Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris offers invaluable insider recommendations on eating and shopping with Parisian panache.

The best of Paris, featuring 164 restaurants, bistros, wine bars, and salons de thé, as well as over 130 bakeries, pastry shops, cheese shops, bookstores, chocolate and candy shops, cookware and tableware stores, specialty shops, outdoor markets, and much, much more!

A Year in Provence

Who hasn't dreamed, on a mundane Monday or frowzy Friday, of chucking it all in and packing off to the south of France? Provençal cookbooks and guidebooks entice with provocatively fresh salads and azure skies, but is it really all Côtes-du-Rhône and fleur-de-lis? Author Peter Mayle answers that question with wit, warmth, and wicked candor in A Year in Provence, the chronicle of his own foray into Provençal domesticity.

Beginning, appropriately enough, on New Year's Day with a divine luncheon in a quaint restaurant, Mayle sets the scene and pits his British sensibilities against it. "We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers," he writes, "looked with an addict's longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window." He describes in loving detail the charming, 200-year-old farmhouse at the base of the Lubéron Mountains, its thick stone walls and well-tended vines, its wine cave and wells, its shade trees and swimming pool--its lack of central heating. Indeed, not 10 pages into the book, reality comes crashing into conflict with the idyll when the Mistral, that frigid wind that ravages the Rhône valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges. And that's just January.

In prose that skips along lightly, Mayle records the highlights of each month, from the aberration of snow in February and the algae-filled swimming pool of March through the tourist invasions and unpredictable renovations of the summer months to a quiet Christmas alone. Throughout the book, he paints colorful portraits of his neighbors, the Provençaux grocers and butchers and farmers who amuse, confuse, and befuddle him at every turn. A Year in Provence is part memoir, part homeowner's manual, part travelogue, and all charming fun. --L.A. Smith

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.

Paris (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)

The Eyewitness Travel Guide helps you to get the most out of your trip with minimum difficulties. The opening section Introducing Paris locates the city geographically, sets modern Parisian its historical context and explains how Parisian life changes through the years. Paris At a Glance is an overview of the city's specialties. The main sightseeing section of the book is Paris Area by Area. It describes all the main sights with maps, photographs and detailed illustrations. Get to know Paris with The Eyewitness Travel Guide.

Hungry for Paris: The Ultimate Guide to the City's 102 Best Restaurants

WHEN IN PARIS. . . .

If you’re passionate about eating well during your next trip to Paris, you couldn’t ask for a better travel companion than Alexander Lobrano’s charming, friendly, and authoritative Hungry for Paris, the first new comprehensive guide in many years to the city’s restaurant scene. Lobrano, Gourmet magazine’s European correspondent, has written for almost every major food and travel magazine since he became an American in Paris in 1986. Here he shares his personal selection of the city’s 102 best restaurants, each of which is portrayed in savvy, fun, lively descriptions that are not only indispensable for finding a superb meal but a pleasure to read.

Lobrano reveals the hottest young chefs, the coziest bistros, the best buys–including those haute cuisine restaurants that are really worth the money–and the secret places Parisians love most, together with information on the most delicious dishes, ambience, clientele, and history of each restaurant. A series of delightful essays cover various aspects of dining in Paris, including “Table for One” (how to eat alone), “The Four Seasons” (the best of seasonal eating in Paris), and “Eating the Unspeakable” (learning to eat what you don’t think you like). All restaurants are keyed to helpful maps, and the book is seasoned with beautiful photographs by Life magazine photographer Bob Peterson that will only help whet your appetite for tasting Paris.

Praise for Hungry for Paris:
"Every time I go to Paris I call Alec and ask him where to eat. Nobody else has such an intimate knowledge of what is going on in the Paris food world right this minute, and there is nobody I trust more to tell me all the latest news. Happily, Alec has written it all down in this wonderful book and now I can stop bothering him." –Ruth Reichl

"Hungry for Paris is a brilliant book with an almost fatal flaw: the writing is so enchanting you may never leave home to go to any of Alec’s favorite places. Few people know,love and appreciate Paris restaurants the way Alec does; no one writes about them better or with more charm." --Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking From My Home to Yours

“When I was nineteen, I went to France to study, but instead, I just ate. The experience changed me: I came back to the United States, and a few years later, started Chez Panisse. In Hungry for Paris, Alec Lobrano describes his own gastronomic awakening, probably better than I could! This book is a wonderful guide to eating in Paris.”
–Alice Waters

“I dearly hope Monsieur Lobrano has an unlisted phone number, for his book will make readers more than merely hungry for the culinary riches of his adopted city; it will make them ravenous for a dining companion with his particular warmth, wry charm, and refreshingly pure joie de vivre. Lobrano is a sly raconteur, a respectful critic, and the very best kind of insider--one who genuinely longs to share all his best discoveries.”
–Julia Glass, author of The Whole World Over and Three Junes

“Organized by neighborhood and interspersed with delightful sections on such matters as eating alone. . . . This is the sort of guide you read before you go to Paris… Lobrano tells you what to expect and how to act.”-Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Lobrano . . . fleshes out his luscious prose with tempting photos. Hungry for Paris is like a cozy bistro on a chilly day: It makes you feel welcome.”
-Washington Post Book World

“Le Grand Vfour. Maxim's. La Table de Jol Robuchon. None of these venerated restaurants are on Lobrano's list of the 102 best in Paris. And that's one of the reasons I love Hungry for Paris.”-Gridskipper

“A treasure trove of 102 mostly undiscovered addresses… Small and innovative bistros get the lion's share of Lobrano's ink, interspersed with chapters that are autobiographical, informative and entertaining.”-Women’s Wear Daily

“Lobrano is an ideal guide because he remembers who he was, how he became the expert he is now, and how you can acquire expertise. And he can do that hard thing --- see what's in front of him.”- HeadButler.com

Frommer's Paris 2008 (Frommer's Complete)

Frommer's. The best trips start here.

Experience a place the way the locals do. Enjoy the best it has to offer.

• Detailed reviews of the best hotels, restaurants, and attractions, plus side trips to Temecula's wineries, Disneyland, Tijuana, and more.

• Outspoken opinions on what's worth your time and what's not.

• Exact prices, so you can plan the perfect trip whatever your budget.

• Off-the-beaten-path experiences and undiscovered gems, plus new takes on top attractions.

Find great deals and book your trip at Frommers.com

SmartFrench Audio CDs Beginner Level

This one is a "must" for learning how the French REALLY talk! William Martin, retired political editor, The Oakland Tribune I've tried them all and this one is it! Joe Hogan, CBS With these Audio CDs you will work on natural conversations with our unique Active Sensory ComprehensionTM method. You will learn your new language both effectively and efficiently. You will develop your listening skills. For reference, we give you a booklet with the transcripts and the translations. Our color-coding system will help you pronounce the words and sentences the way you will hear them pronounced in real life conversations. This step by step approach to the language will help you understand French, like no other method, early in your studies. With these CDs you will start to understand and speak the language as spoken in the real world. If you are a true beginner, you might want to work with our SmartFrench Introduction to French, Vol.1 and SmartFrench Introduction to French, Vol.2 in order to work on the basic vocabulary, conjugation and grammar. Learning French requests that you learn to speak French and that you learn to understand it. Vol.1 and Vol.2 will teach you the basics in order to speak the language and these CDs will teach you to understand and be understood as you will develop strong listening skills. The best is to practice both exercises simultaneously. No matter what other sources you use in your language learning, the Smart thing to do is give yourself this key to confidence. Ian Jackson, CEO, Breathplay, Dallas

Rick Steves' France 2008 (Rick Steves)