France

I have found all Michelin products to be invaluable when planning a trip. Hotels and Restaurants are rated, and while I've run into a very few clunkers in the restaurant recommendations, I've found the recommended hotels were well described, very clean, and mainly, that I never would have known about without the Guides. Both the Green Guide and the Red Guide are dependable and useful. I highly recommend both.

I disagree with the reviewer from Switzerland. What I love about the France guide is that Michelin allows travelers to France the freedom to hone up on everything they need to know about major sights and attractions as well as the little hidden corners of the country that real francophiles might enjoy. These are the places where you don't run in to everyone else on vacation with the same guidebook. You can break away from the crowds and still have enough information to make new discoveries. As go the hotel and restaurants, there is a nice red book called the Michelin Guide France that accompanies the Green Guide. Anyone going to France should most certainly have a copy of it - use this and eat in authentic restaurants the way only savvy locals do. Michelin provides you enough info to make your own discoveries without any surprises.

The London reviewer is right. Michelin's guides have acquired such authority over the years that you might say that while others offer just opinions, the Michelin is fact. Those coming to Michelin for the first time will have to learn the symbols and codes: unlike most restaurant guides, written as a series of "restaurant reviews", Michelin has almost no descriptive text at all (the little there is was a novelty introduced only 100 years after the first edition) so its rating is all the more lapidary. No qualms here about being judgmental! As a result, you may want to carry other hotel and restaurant guides with you when visiting France, but you will always, always rely on the Michelin to tell you the truth about levels of comfort and the quality of cooking. And only the Michelin offers such comprehensive coverage. If there's somewhere decent to eat in the remotest corner of Brittany or the Correze, Michelin will know. Conversely, if a town has neither hotel nor restaurant in the guide, you just don't go there, it's a simple as that. By the way, when driving around France, use Michelin road maps. Any city, town or village with a place in the guide is underlined in red, so wherever you are, when you start to feel hungry, you know where to go!One reservation as regards the London review: Michelin is not as reliable on restaurants in other countries, where you should always compare with a local guide; but you can still use it to double-check hotel standards before booking.By the way, all the ratings are on Michelin's web site - but you'll still need the book of course when travelling around.

The Red Michelin Guide for Hotels and Restaurants is without doubt the best reference guide book - not only for Parisian but also all for all other French Hotels and Restaurants. This is thanks to a qualified experience, which Michelin has accumulated in over 100 years. The original Michelin Guide for Hotels and Restaurants was originally produced in 1900 by the French tire company Michelin in order to give the chauffeur of a auto a good guide of where he could stop and relax in an an adequate way with his employer. In addition , the original Michelin guide also listed petrol stations, which were rare a the time. In fact, petrol was actually first sold in pharmacies in those very early days of the automobile. Today, the Red Michelin Guide is the reference for hotels and restaurants - not only in France, but for all other European countries. For restaurants, the most important verdict every year is, of course, the Michelin stars - it can make or break them.

When I travel to Europe, I never fail to get the green guide of the country I plan to go to, and the corresponding red guide. One tells me what is worth to be visited, the other advises me on restaurants and hotels. I appreciate the accuracy and I trust their star system. I feel I can trust the guides and I believe Michelin when they claim not to get any money to give stars to restaurants, hotels or cities (which is not always the feeling I get from some other guides)