You can choose from over 700 hotels in and around Paris, read reviews, find hotel location maps, discounted rates and lots of valuable information on my Paris Hotels Booking Page
When we were planning our trip to Paris we asked some friends where we should stay. Our friend Christina told us about her favorite little hotel on the Square at St Sulpice called the Recamier, right near the Luxembourg Gardens. It sounded OK to me and it was cheap, which in Paris means around 150 euros a night. When we arrived at the airport
our taxi driver, who was French, had never even heard of the hotel. Not a good sign, I thought. We finally located it right beneath one of the towers of the Cathedral of St Sulpice. We entered the small but colorful lobby and took the tiny elevator which could only fit one of us and our bags or two of us without our bags, or just our bags without us. The room was small. The phone was pre-laptop connector which meant I could not answer my e-mail. There was no TV. But the view of the square was fine and
you could even see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. OK. I hated it. I wanted to find another hotel with a big lobby and cable TV and a bar. But after a night or so I completely changed my mind. The room was perfect. No TV and no Internet meant I could read or sleep or take a shower. There was no other reason to be in the room which kept me out of it for longer periods of time. The bathroom was great. Maybe the best shower of my life once I figured out work the faucets and it was nice to see a bidet even though
I did not use that (We used to have one in our apartment in Athens when we were kids and when we asked my mom what it was she told us it was a foot bath which is what we used it for.) The reason I liked the room was because it caused me to spend more time wandering around Paris or sitting in cafes. You know how we are sometime. We go to a foreign country and we find ourselves watching CNN for three hours, catching up on the news, sports and even watching stuff we don't even care about. So my advice is if you
are coming to Paris find the most simple hotel room you can. You want it to be clean. You probably want it to have an elevator (always ask when you book), it helps if the people at the desk are nice, you want hot water any time of day, and if you are like me you want to be in St Germain, preferably near the Rue de Canettes because there are lots of little restaurants and if one person wants to go home early you can say "OK. But I am staying" and not worry about them getting lost.
Of course not everyone is as Bohemian as I am and some people want to watch CNN and have air-conditioning if they need it and have a nice bar in the lobby where they can meet and talk to their fellow guests and maybe have someone to go out to dinner with later. There are plenty of hotels of every category in Paris and in every part of the city. As a general rule you want to be in the following arrondissements: The 5th which is the Latin Quarter, the 6th which is St Germain, the 7th which is the Eiffel Tower and the Hotel des Invalides, the 4th which includes the Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis, the 1st which includes the Louvre, the 8th which includes the Champs Elysees and the 18th which is where Montmarte is. All these areas are on the river with the exception of the 18th, and if you are healthy you can walk just about anywhere from them. But I still think the 5th and the 6th are the best areas to stay in.
It is best to book in advance and you can do this over the net or through your local neighborhood travel agent who may have a favorite place of her own, since Paris is the one destination that probably every travel agent has been to at least once. (If not, get a new travel agent.
Hotels are classified by stars, with the highest quality being the five and the lowest being one. The highest quality are generally in the 1st, 8th and the 16th arrondissements. Some of the one and two star hotels don't have private bath and these are also the ones you should make sure they have an elevator. Most serve continental breakfast, though we went out every morning for ours in the cafes on the Boulevard St Germain. But you can probably count on bread, butter, jam and coffee. When you book over the phone or on-line you will need to use a credit card for the first night at least. Then you can pay for the rest in cash when you get there.
As for finding hotels without the help of a travel agent most websites like this one contain ads by individual hotels or hotel booking sites so check those. Also the recommended guidebooks like Richard Saul Wurman's ACCESS PARIS have their favorites and you can probably trust them.
You can choose from over 700 hotels in and around Paris, read reviews, find hotel location maps, discounted rates and lots of valuable information on my Paris Hotels Booking Page