For many years now Louis Vuitton has been writing honest, luxurious, and most importantly detailed guide books on select destinations around the world.
This year, the European City Guides box set has an additional eight locations added to the set from last year. They are updated and expanded every year, adding new locations and event listing, however, the main areas are hotels, restaurants, galleries, and fashion stores.
I own a set of the European Guides from 2007 and have used them as I travel with the greatest success. Although these books are produced by a luxury fashion house, they don’t only contain exclusive and expensive listings and reviews. They really do focus on what’s happening in the city and why it is relevant while making sure to give all the necessary information you’d find in a Lonely Planet or Wallpaper city guide.
I like the ribbon place marker in each book because you don’t have to stick post-its all over the book or dog ear the pages! The even each have a very useful section called Keys to the City which lists important numbers and addresses, a calendar of events, local publications and other practical information.
I love these guide books myself and I would recommend them to the mature couple who has everything or as an inspiring graduation gift (about $145US for the European set and about $37US per individual city). The complete locations are as follows: Paris, Bordeaux, Deauville, Marseilles, London, Leeds, Dublin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Knokke-Le-Zoutte, Geneva, Basel, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Rome, Genoa, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Lisbon, Moscow, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Athens, Mykonos, Instanbul, Tel Aviv.
Published in October 2009 with over 2000 new listings added accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations by Ruben Toledo.
