Can you please explain to this enthusiastic rookie, what is the difference between the differnt colored michelin guides??<BR>I'm planning on loading up for our trip to four countries, and don't know exactly what to buy.<BR>We want to stay in four star hotels mostly, and some of the guide books I've investigated seem to lean towards budget travel, which will be next years trip. For my honeymoon, I want to splurge a little.<BR>Gracias

The Green ones are guides to the local sites of historical and cultural interest. The Red ones are for hotels and restaurants. Just be aware that the Red guides offer information about hotels other than the ones that Michelin rates with stars, as well as the starred ones. You can often find a superb hotel in the Red Michelin without paying what it takes to stay in one of the starred establishments.

Richard -<BR><BR>I use the Michelinss as my "bibles" in Italy. The Red Guide is great for hotels and restaurants - and has some good city maps - so you can carry it with you during the day just to be sure you can find a place to eat (heaven forbid I miss a meal in Italy!)<BR><BR>The Green Guides are pretty good for overall tourist sites.<BR><BR>I also use the Michelin book of maps for driving. What I like is that they all work with each other. For example, you can tell, by looking at the Red Guide maps, and referring to the Italy maps, just where you're entering a city - even to the street directions. Helped me land right on my doorstep in Florence, arriving at night in a rain storm!<BR><BR>Have a great trip...<BR><BR>Dona

Thank you both for your responses. One more thing---I thought I read about Michelin Blue---if I'm not mistaken, it was Paolo who posted it somewhere, but I'm dealing from memory. If there is a "blue", what is it??<BR>thanks again

I've never heard on Michelin Blue, but there is a well-known series of tourist guide in French called 'Guide Bleu', which should not be confused with English 'Blue Guide', a veritable mine of scholarly, historical and artistic info on various European countries and regions, but short on practical details.

Michelin's strength/weakness - terseness. Red guides simply rate - they don't explain. When Gidleigh Park in England lost its rosette (late 80s I think), they tried to get their customers to put pressure on Michelin by writing in complaints. I believe Michelin simply stonewalled - as they do.<BR><BR>Where the Red Guide is deemed to fail? A little prone to look too closely at peripherals to the food - you cannot get three rosettes if you do not use top quality napery, cutlery etc. First ever edition awarded three rosettes to a small bistro with red check tablecloths near Paris - just could not happen today. Also, stronger on classical (French) cuisine than modern styles. So, weak on good bistros, great on good restaurants. Similar for hotels - a bit less so, I feel. They are REALLY mean with red turrets - for castles and mansions as well as quaint but modest lodgings.<BR><BR>Not the greatest reputation on Italian food ...<BR><BR>The merit of the Green Guides is also the failure to gush - they seem to aim for an accurate, disinterested and restrained assessment of the merits of sites/towns/routes.<BR><BR>They are my favourites, but I also like to use a more forthright and opinionated source - to add a little local colour. In France, for restaurants/hotels, that would be Gault Millau - also excellent.<BR><BR>For my splurge urge, I START with Relais et Chateaux. Many/most of the top rated Michelin places will also be Relais affiliates, particularly in France, but also elsewhere.

St Cirq---<BR><BR>You rarely make a mistake---but---Michelin red does not rate hotels by stars only by the size of the icon and its color--the occasional red one signifies charm.<BR>Stars are for restaurants.<BR><BR>AH

Austin:<BR><BR>I didn't phrase that message clearly, or perhaps I AM confused. People talk about restaurants having, for example, two Michelin stars. What I meant to say was that the Red Guide contains information about restaurants other than the ones that carry "Michelin stars." And you're right, they don't use a star system in the book.<BR><BR>Did I get this right, or not? My Michelin Red Guide is in France at the moment and I won't be able to check it until Thursday.

I have been using Michelin and Gault-Millau to plan a trip to Provence (Vaucluse) and there are no stars on hotels, just ratings from 1 to 5 "houses" (it's a picture, similar to Gault-Millau's picture, and then as someone else said, some are marked in red to mean especially comfortable. There are, of course, many restaurants listed with 1-5 forks, I think, and only occasional restaurants have star(s). Michelin has several other guides in addition to these well-known ones; the blue one is probably something new for weekend travel trips, I forget it's name. YOu can see all about these guides on www.michelin-travel.com. I have been using this web site to plan hotels and restaurants and it's really great; I think it has all the stuff in the red book, not sure, the description may be less lengthy but the basics are there. One nice thing about the web site is you can search for all hotels (or restaurants) within a certain distance of a specific town, for example, which is more convenient than the book where you'd have to look every town up separately, I think. It's really a neat web site. Gault Millau is also online (www.gault-millau.fr) and it is more convenient to search that way and print a list than to use the book where you have to look up every town.

This past week in Paris I purchased the new 2001 Paris guide, now called the Guide Rouge and found, much to my surprise, that the new edition included a short 2-3 sentence narrative below the recommendations, including the house specialties. (Now I just have to work on my basic French reading skills. I also purchased the new Green guide for our trip to the Pays Basque this summer and also found that these new editions have a slightly different format and also include a short list of hotels/restaurants in each city/region, something never, ever included in a Green guide before.<BR>

I have to say that I think when you use a michelin guide - red - that a suplimental guide is important. We used the red guide for our first trip to France and could not afford the star rated restaurants and felt most of the others mentioned were truly mediocre. This website (Fodors) is a great resource, as well as the Patricia Wells guide to food in France (not sure of the title).

What I like about the new version of the Michelin Paris Guide Rouge (besides the brief descriptions) is the smiling red symbol, the "Bib Gourmand" that indicates a good value, moderately priced restaurant. We tried 5 of these Bib Gourmand selections in Paris: L'Epi Dupin, Le P'tit Troquet, Maupertu, Les Olivades and Clos des Gourmets (missed Au Bon Accueil), and we had fine dining at a very reasonable cost. But these were also recommended by our supplemental guides, the very reliable Fodorites plus P. Well's Food Lover's Guide to Paris. We skipped the Michelin star establishments and concentrated on these good value small bistros, always choosing the prix-fixe menu, which allowed for a number of choices, not just a set meal.