Good iPhone apps for upcoming trip to Paris, Provence, and St. Tropez?
 

Looking at things like Skype for making calls (using wifi).

I'm hoping that someone can give me some more specific names of apps, including: 1) something for the Paris Metro, 2) maybe a museum guide, walking guide? (free?), 3) top places to eat (i'm thinking of something like the NYT's sifty fifty which would steer even the most clueless of us towards something good), 4) something to help with translation english to french 5) any specific apps for Provence and St. Tropez areas?

I'm a big internet guy and would really appreciate some free (and paid) apps, especially something really cool I may have missed.

Something that can point us in the right direction of chowhound type places would be very well received!

maybe a euro converter although i am a finance guy and can do that in my head.

Looking forward to you getting some responses ABCDEFG! I'm curious to know what apps are out there too.

Hello ABCDEFG :)

Rick Steves has some free apps for Paris:

http://www.ricksteves.com/ae/ae_menu.htm

Happy travels!

Correction to above: He's calling them downloadable audio guides, not apps. Might be what you're looking for, though.

thanks swisshiker! downloadable audio guides look perfect; exactly the type of thing I was hoping to find - we will definitely be at many of the museums so these should be very nice.

I found a decent free app with a map of the Paris Metro. Should suffice.

I got a lot of use out of the Rome2Go app on a recent trip. There's a Paris version too, so I'd definitely recommend checking it out. It has information about top attractions and searchable maps, all available without internet access once you've downloaded.

I also downloaded the Metr0 app for that trip - we didn't actually use it a lot, but that's because we didn't end up taking much public transportation in Italy. Might be worth checking out.

Among the iPhone apps we used and liked in October 2009:

<b>Loney Planet French Phrasebook</b>
<b>eCurrency</b> (dynamic currency exchange calculator)
<b>Zagat to Go</b> (helpful for restaurant reviews and contact info)
<b>Paris Metro Subway</b> (one of several apps we found in the iTunes store)
<b>Wine Ratings Guide by Nirvino</b> (helped us evaluate the myriad assortment of French wines)
<b>iXpenseIt</b> (budget tracking with live conversions of Euros or Pounds -- or several other currencies -- to Dollars. Tags the time and date of the conversion in its ledger)

Only downside is, with 3G roaming disabled on our iPhone (unless you have a $$$ data plan for Europe), we had to rely on WiFi to take advantage of live Internet capabilities of these apps.

That's <b>Lonely Planet French Phrasebook</b>.

I liked MetrO for getting around public transportation and escargo for menu translation. Paris Essentials (by Sutro media) isn't a bad app for random Paris attractions, and the Louvre has a great free app too. The Rick Steves audio app for Versailles wasn't bad.

Paris2Go
ParisLite
SpeakFrench Dining
French Lite
Paris Metro Subway
Wi-Fi Finder (use to find free wi-fi...only use your phone with free wi-fi!! pronounced wee-fee, I believe in France)
ditto on the iCurrency converter

There are several different Paris Metro apps apparently - this is the one I used for 6 weeks - it was excellent and can be used offline, an important feature.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/metro...297404959?mt=8

Also the Louvre app was quite good - it features mainly the highlights ...

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/pr...79&bmLocale=en

Just another comment re that Metro app - it's more than just a map in that it has an interactive FROM/TO feature that takes the guess work out of which line(s) to take and as mentioned can be used offline (while you're on a train)

bookmarking for info I can apply to our trip to Tuscany and Rome in early July!

I have recently downloaded "The Food Lover's Guide to Paris" by Patricia Wells on my iphone, and can't wait to use it on my trip next June!

I also d/l The Food Lover's Guide! Will use it in October.

Don't forget the free Fodors Paris Guide!

Hello,

I have a question regarding using the Paris2go app. Since this thread is about iphone apps relevant to Paris, am posting here instead of starting a new thread.

Ok, so to clarify on how I can use the paris2go app in Paris:

-my phone can have "Data roaming", "Cellular Data" and "Enable 3G" in "Off" position, as well as wifi in "off".
-"Location Services" for this app has to be "on"
-then, by touching the arrow at the top right corner, it locates my position - is that correct?

Sorry this is a naive question I know. Thanks for helping out.

Yes, that's right - I kept my data roaming turned off the entire time I was in Paris except when actively checking email or something, but was still able to locate myself on the map. It works using the phone's GPS, which doesn't require data to locate you.

(The app also works on an iPod Touch, but because that device doesn't have a GPS, it won't find your position unless you're in wifi range.)

iPhone users might reconsider when and where, or whether it's a good idea at all, to use an iPhone in public in Paris -

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...m#last-comment

jent103, thank you very much for answering my question about iphone usage, the information is very helpful for me.

I have both the MetrO app and the voyages-sncf.com app. All train travel questions can be answered directly from the iphone!