I got this book immediately after Jamie and I decided to spend our boys' Camp Fern vacation in Paris. I've used Rick's books on Rome and Venice before, and have been immensely pleased.
At the book's recommendation, we decided to stay in the Rue Cler neighborhood, which is between the Eiffel Tower and the Invalides. We liked the area and the little restaurants very much. The was, as usual, immensely helpful in planning our seven days on the ground, and we used the four audio podcasts he provides for a Paris Walking Tour, the Louvre and the Orsay museums (see, even Mona uses them), and Versailles (all you need is an iPod, a splitter and two headsets),
and liked them very, very much. They have us expedited tours of all four, and kept us from floundering all day long while still not sure we were seeing everything. The Paris walking tour in particular we would never have seen the Latin Quarter or gotten late night gelato on Ile de Saint-Louis, or noticed (much less stopped at) Shakespeare & Co. (We did forget to print the maps which I'll remember next time)
We would not have gone to the chateau at Vaux-le-Vicomte had Rick not suggested it (it requires a train trip and a taxi ride which it a bit daunting for a couple of non-French speakers) but that was definitely a highlight. The only problem was that we were all geared up for a day trip to Reims, but when we got to the train station the schedules were far more complicated than those for Versailles (or even to Melun for Vaux-le-Vicomte) and the book had not warned us that we really had to leave very early in the morning, so we ended up skipping the day trip to Reims to see the cathedral and the champagne caves.
But that one misstep aside, I enjoyed reading the book, and really enjoyed how much it added to our enjoyment of the trip. The podcasts definitely were the highlight - there was nothing here that ended up being quite the event that the night walking tours of Rome and Venice were, but admittedly we didn't do the night cab ride around Paris that he recommended, so that's probably our fault. maybe next time! Anyway, once again, I would not hit a European city without his book, and I really should have gotten any DVDs he has as well (we did get them for Italy, Greece and Turkey, but didn't watch as much as we should have).