Paris Digest
Paris city guide since 1997
Best Paris hotels and apartments downtown. Best districts. Booking. Cheval Blanc, Plazza Athénée, Royal Monceau and The Ritz are top 5 star hotels in Paris. Feel at home in a right bank hotel near Louvre or Champs-Elysées, a left bank hotel near Notre-Dame. Rooms are generally small downtown. Breakfast is mostly continental and expensive. Cafés are an alternative. Few hotels have a parking. Consider renting an apartment. You may save on money, specially if your party is over 3 people. Paris Camping in Bois de Boulogne and hostels are affordable stay options. Paris hotel map. Trip to Paris.
The Champs-Elysées are the most prestigious avenue in the world. The district has most 5 star hotels in the city.
Parisians generally prefer the quiet left bank over the busy right bank. Stay there in a romantic boutique hotel.
Stay in a hotel within walking distance of the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Departments Stores and other top sights.
Notre-Dame Cathedral, the left bank and Le Marais district will easily be within walking distance of your hotel.
Hotel D'Aubusson is a 17th-century private mansion set in the heart of the left bank, just 350 m from Odéon metro station. The five star hotel offers a jazz bar and an interior courtyard with a fountain. Guest rooms feature original beams, antique furniture and a monumental fireplace made of Burgundy stone. Some suites feature a four-poster bed and a view of the courtyard with its marble statues. Each room at Hotel D'Aubusson has a marble bathroom, a coffee machine and high-speed WiFi. A full English breakfast is served every morning. The jazz bar is located in the same building as the Hotel D'Aubusson.
This hotel is located between the Sorbonne and the Luxembourg Gardens in the Left Bank. It offers air-conditioned and soundproofed guest rooms with flat-screen TV and free Wi-Fi access. Guests can relax in the shared living area, with an open fireplace.The Saint-Paul serves a buffet breakfast in the hotel's 17th-century arched cellar.
Located near the Sorbonne University on the left bank, this 4-star hotel offers 13 luxury rooms with period furniture and painted ceilings. It is a 10 minute walk to Notre-Dame. Marble fireplaces and vintage paintings give the rooms a 19th-century feel. All accommodation has free Wi-Fi access. This property has one of the best-rated locations and is also rated for the best value in town.
This 4-star hotel is located at the heart of the chic right bank in the city center. Quiet street in between the Garnier Opera and the Louvre Museum. Charming boutique hotel, offering guest rooms with a refined decor and free Wi-Fi. The air-conditioned guest rooms are equipped with a minibar and a flat-screen TV with satellite channels. Each room has a private bathroom including a hairdryer.
Hotel Crayon is located in the very town center, 500 m from the Louvre and a 5 minute walk from Chatelet-Les Halles Metro Station. Decorated like an artist studio, it also offers free Wi-Fi access. Guest rooms at Hotel Crayon are air-conditioned and equipped with flat-screen TV with satellite channels, a vintage telephone and safe. Rooms are serviced by an elevator.
One of the best and fanciest hotels in town. Near Champs-Elysées. Covering 1500 m², the Spa includes a 23 m infinity pool. Guests can dine at Il Carpaccio, the only Michelin-star Italian restaurant in Paris and sample Italian pastries prepared by superstar Pierre Hermé. Ther hotel has the first Matsuhisa restaurant in France, run by world renowned Chef Nobu Matsuhisa.
The Hotel Istria, located at 29, rue Campagne Première, has played a key rôle in the artistic life of Paris in the 1930s. Man Ray lived there, when he had his studio in the adjoining building. Marcel Duchamp lived there too. As for Tristan Tzara, it is said that he left the hotel on all fours so as not to have to come up with excuses for his late payments. Francis Picabia and Erik Satie came there to work on their ballet “Relâche” which was assembled on September 5, 1924 by Germaine Everling, awakened at night by the crazy tumbles on the stairs, from Kisling, Radiguet lived there a love with Bronya. Elsa Triolet lived at this hotel until her meeting with Aragon at the Closerie des Lilas in 1929. The poet wrote: "When you were staying at the Hotel Istria, everything was different on rue Campagne Première. In one thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine around noon. Soon the Russian poet Mayakovsky landed in this place, November 9, 1924; he said: "this is the cheapest and cleanest small hotel there is: I am saving money and I try not to drag too much to the right and to the left." Here, he was waiting for a visa for the United States which was not be granted. He left for Moscow on December 27 after being robbed of all his papers and his money! He returned on June 10, 1925, left for the United States. We find him at this same hotel in May 1927, November 1928, and the last time in March 1929. In the poem "Verlaine and Cézanne", he later evoked the narrowness of his room. Thus, the Istria hotel remains a high place in the artistic universe of the 1930s, marked by Surrealism and the incomparable revolution of the arts, and this in all fields of application. On the borders of Montparnasse, it is the living witness of an era that has become distant but still alive in our memories.
The Ritz Paris was created in a private mansion, located on one of the most beautiful squares in Paris, at 15 Place Vendôme, which can be seen from certain rooms. It is no coincidence that the Ritz has been a historic monument since May 17, 1930. Since 1979, the Egyptian billionaire, Mohamed Al-Fayed, has owned this hotel. The Ritz was the first hotel in the world to have electricity, a telephone and a bathroom in each room, elevators and a ventilation system. For the time, it was unprecedented! The Ritz also had the largest private pool in the capital. César Ritz declared to his architects "It must be the latest in elegance, the first modern hotel in Paris. I want it hygienic, comfortable and beautiful because he dreamed of a house to which he would be proud to attach his name. César Ritz then equipped his hotel with period style furniture and all modern comforts. Its gourmet restaurant "L’Espadon", which took its name from César Ritz's favorite dish, was considered the temple of French gastronomy on Place Vendôme and was recently supervised by 4-star chef Nicolas Sale. It was the only hotel in Paris with a school of gastronomy, the Ritz Escoffier school, named after the inventor of fishing Melba. Famous people used to walk through the door of the hotel, and even stay there year-round. Each of them left traces and memories. Coco Chanel, who settled there for more than thirty years, had personalized her apartments and had placed her own furniture there. Her suite still bears and will always bear hers name. In 1994, the bar was renamed "Hemingway" because it was for the famous writer that one of the bartenders had invented there the Bloody Mary. Many other writers liked the Ritz, like Marcel Proust. Audrey Hepburn shot her film “Love in the afternoon” at the Ritz It is also in this legendary hotel that Lady Diana was last seen before the car accident, in August 1997, which costed her her life with her companion Dodi Al-Fayed, son of Mohamed Al-Fayed. The legend has a price.
In Paris, there are in total 1594 hotels including 23 one star, 227 two star 700 three star, 368 4 stars and 80 five star hotels. In Paris region excluding Paris, there are 884 hotels including 40 one star, 193 two star, 295 three star, 139 four star and 3 five star hotels. The average room price is 150 euros. The price may significantly go up during top events like the Paris Air Show, the Paris Motor Show, the Marathon, Roland-Garros and top conventions.
Camping Paris extends over 7 hectares along the Seine river in Bois de Boulogne. There are 510 pitches for tents, caravans, camper-vans, rental accommodation. There are a central lodge opening out onto a terrace, a children's playground, shower blocks, a small grocery store, free wifi, a shuttle bus to Porte Maillot metro station.
