* * *

When Sandra and Jean-Michel Abecassis wanted a  makeover for their Right Bank hotel near Parc Monceau, they enlisted Sandrine Alouf, a designer who’d already created hotels where guests can sleep on clouds (Hôtel One By the Five, 2008); play can-can with Moulin Rouge dancers (Hôtel Secret de Paris, 2009); and commune with Piaf, Sartre or Jean Seberg (Hôtel Montmartre Mon Amour, 2012).

A self-styled “atmospherist,” Alouf quickly caught on to her client’s magic mindset and the theme of this, her tenth hotel project, took shape. Why a decorating niche of theme hotels? “Because I’m someone who likes to tell stories,” she said.

The 24 rooms of the Splendor showcase illusions like levitation, card tricks and celestial magic along with a smattering of penthouse rooms dedicated to pioneering mystic/moviemaker Georges Méliès. Each room has a large hologram above the bed, a theme-imprinted carpet and enchanting wallpaper.  All the bathrooms are shower-only with handsome tiles and the occasional funhouse mirror. As boutique 4-stars go, rooms, whether used as a single or double, are on the small side, about 160 to 180 square feet. There’s also a delightful little single on the top floor.

All in all, the mood is closer to Houdini than Hogwart’s with a decor in the public areas that features historic posters purchased from Paris’s Magic Museum (see below), a magician’s cape and magic books, and top hats rising with the staircase. While other hotels may have a cat as their mascot, this one has a rabbit, named Pomponnette. And who better to keep a rabbit company than an actual magician as French magician extraordinaire Jack Barlett mans the reception desk.

Splendor Hôtel, 38, rue Cardinet, 17th arrondissement. Tel : 01 46 22 07 73.  Metro Maleherbes or Monceau. Since the hotel just opened in October 2013, the launch price is quite reasonable. Inquire about promotional rates.

A magical postscript: Paris’s Magic Museum, Musée de la Magie, where visitors descend into the history of magic, is often forgotten by parents trying to convince their children that seeing the Mona Lisa should be a magical experience. 11 rue Saint-Paul, 4th arrondissement. Metro Saint-Paul or Sully-Morland. Open Wed., Sat. and Sun. 2-7pm and during French school vacations.

© 2013

The post Hotel Review: Le Splendor, Paris’s Most Magical Boutique Hotel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Hotel du Palais
Imperial Resort and Spa
1 avenue de l’Impératrice, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 41 64 00. Website.

You don’t need a 5-star budget in order to enjoy the pleasures of the French Basque coast, but if you’ve got one then there is only one place to use it: Biarritz’s Hotel de Palais, the classically luxurious, exceptionally situated and overall outstanding seaside palace.

The history of this hotel has been inseparable from that of Biarritz ever since 1854, when Emperor Napoleon III, gave his nod to the construction on this site of a summer palace, Villa Eugénie, named for his wife.

It was she, Eugénie de Montijo, born into Spanish aristocracy but raised mostly in France, who was so fond of Biarritz, having first visited at age 9, in 1835. (While Eugenia was particularly fond of Biarritz, Napoleon III had a warm spot for Vichy [see article http://francerevisited.com/2009/07/vichy-not-that-vichy-this-vichy/], as did his mistresses.)

The imperial couple’s visit to Biarritz in the summer of 1854 got them hooked on the beauty and warmth of the Basque coast, and Villa Eugénie was ready to receive them on their visit the following year. For the next 16 years, with the exception of 1860 and 1869, they sojourned, bringing with them a train of aristocracy—French, first, then from throughout Europe. “La reine des plages et la plage des rois,” Biarritz was called: The queen of beaches (beach resorts) and the beach (beach resort) of kings.

The crowned heads barely took pause with the Franco-Prussian war and the fall of the emperor, as Biarritz remained one of France’s most notable resorts during the Belle Epoque. It was a period that saw Villa Eugénie transformed into a hotel and casino. Russia’s grand dukes came for the season; Queen Victoria saw fit to visit and then so did Edward VII and many more. Much of the hotel-casino burned down in 1903, after which it was largely rebuilt as the luxury hotel seen today. You’ll see the initials NE around the hotel referring to Napoleon Emperor or, if you prefer, to Napoleon and Eugenia.

The Hotel du Palais has the particularity among France’s top crop of hotels of belonging to the City of Biarritz and of nevertheless being well managed, apparently, by a semi-public (mixed economy) company. The rooms are of classic luxury with pretty little contemporary touches.

The hotel has a pool, a fine restaurant, bar, direct access to the beach and a spa. A fine place from which to enjoy a moody sunset.

The spa (Guerlain products) covers five floors and is brightly lit by natural sunlight. In addition to the pool and other amenities to which clients have free access, the spa offers soins that are “cocooning, personal and intimate” along with a Leonor Greyl hair institute.

Café de Paris
5 place Bellevue, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 19 53. Café de Paris is part of the HMC group of hotels and resorts. Website.

This sweet and sober 4-star boutique hotel with an easy-going décor of gray, white and splashes of color is ideally situated at the crux of the Grande Plage, with a remarkable view from all 19 rooms of the length of the beach and out to the lighthouse. A short walk in other directions leads to covered food market, the old ports and the promenade over the rocks. The hotel itself has a worthwhile restaurant.

Hotel Windsor
Grande Plage, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 08 52. Website.

The Hotel Windsor, owned and operated by the Heguy family since 1948, is also a 4-star. It’s a notch less notable than the Café de Paris but also a notch less expensive. Half of its 48 rooms overlook the crowds of the beach (la Grande Plage). The rooms are simply decorated—bright white walls and furnishing, striped bed covers, dark wood floors; pleasant if not exuberant. There are some nice rooms on the courtyard and others on the side with a sliver of a beach or ocean view, but of course the full frontal view is preferable. There are a few reasonably priced family rooms for those traveling with young children.

Edouard VII
21 avenue Carnot, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 05 59 22 39 80. Website.

With 18 rooms housed in a 19th-century mansion, this family-operated 3-star hotel feels like a large B&B: cozy, a touch of charm, a nice place from which to feel at home in the city and to chat up other guests. The Edouard VII isn’t as close to the beach as the others mentioned here, but it’s only a short walk (about 350 yards) to the Plage de la Côte des Basques, Biarritz’s longer and less citified beach. Another way of looking at it is that when staying here you can reach either beach on a short walk, and the covered food market, which is the center of local life in the morning, is just 200 yards away.

Room size increases slightly from one category to the next though the more noticeable difference is the increase in bed width—140 cm/55 in., 160 cm/63 in., 180 cm/71 in. There’s a fourth category: a family room suitable if traveling with small children. In the warmer seasons breakfast can be served on the terrace.

Mercure Plaza
10 avenue Edouard VII, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 0559247400. Website.

A handsome, 69-room, 3-star chain hotel with an admirable Art Deco heart, the Mercure Plaza is well set just a block off the beach, across the street from the casino and a fine place from which to set out on a promenade in any direction.

When to visit: A visitor naturally wants warm weather and warm (at least not cold) water when visiting Biarritz, and that naturally means visiting from mid-spring to mid-autumn. Nevertheless, Biarritz is a worthwhile off-season destination, when you may well luck upon some warmish sunny days between October and March. Furthermore, as with all seaside resorts, off-season pricing can be up to half that of the high season.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more on Biarritz on France Revisited read: Biarritz Ocean: The Brand Between Bilbao and Bordeaux and Biarritz: The Surfing Lesson.

Official site of the Biarritz Tourist Office: http://tourisme.biarritz.fr/en

Getting to Biarritz: There are direct flights to Biarritz from Paris and other French cities as well as from various northern European capitals (London, Dublin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, Stockholm). By train, Biarritz is 5:20 from Paris and 2:00 from Bordeaux.

The post Biarritz Hotels: Hotel du Palais, Café de Paris, Windsor, Edouard VII, Mercure Plaza appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I crossed the city by bike one late afternoon and checked into the Hotel Aviatic so as to test the hotel and investigate the surrounding neighborhood. Within 10 minutes I sensed that the Aviatic could hold its head high in its category, that of the 3-star Left Bank charmer. First there was the warmth of the welcome. Then the fact that the receptionist took my unusual request for a safe place to keep my bike for the night seriously and immediately sought a solution (the kitchen, until the luggage storage room could be rearranged). And the fact that the 42-room hotel seemed empty, even though it was nearly full. And finally my room: neat, well-appointed, recently renovated, and quiet.

Satisfied with that first impression I then set out to explore the neighborhood. Earlier in the day I’d called a photographer I’d been corresponding with who lives on this side of the city and asked if he’d meet me at the corner café by the hotel. We’d never met before and France Revisited was then considering adding a photography blog to the site. When we met that afternoon he, too, made a good first impression with his easy-going eye to detail, which was further apparent in his observations as we then investigated the surrounding area for the 3-minute radius guide below. (He is now a regular contributor to France Revisited’s Photography section under the lens name Va-nu-pieds.)

It was mid-August, many of the shops and eateries in the 3-minute radius guide were closed for vacation. So I returned in the fall to visit the neighborhood in full bloom. This edge of the 6th arrondissement, around the corner from the heart of the Montparnasse Quarter, is removed from the dense zone for 3-star charmers situated near Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Luxembourg Garden, yet the hotel is well situated on a relatively calm street that’s parallel to Rue du Cherche-Midi, a street that is as appealing for a sweet, sophisticated stroll as any in Paris. This is a fine place to call home for a few days or longer.

Despite the claustrophobic décor of vintage posters in the breakfast room, the Aviatic is peaceably decorated. In its promo documents, the hotel is described like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory—“walls the colour of raspberries, café-crème coloured paintwork, chairs in chocolate, cherry and vanilla stripes…” rooms with “warm chocolate, taupe and cherry colours…” or “subtle sea-green and Clementine tones…”—but I can assure you that it’s truly a hotel and a comfortable one at that.

The Hotel Aviatic has air conditioning, as do most central 3-star hotels and all 4- and 5-star hotels. Apart from hotels, air conditioning remains a rarity in apartments in Paris, a city with few sweltering nights. Those who live on a quiet street, as I do, or whose bedroom is on quieter courtyards, as was mine at the Aviatic, sleep in summer with the window open. Therefore, having grown unaccustomed to air conditioning, I didn’t turn it on at the hotel but instead opened the window.

We’re also unaccustomed to flying insects in Paris, which explains the absence of screen windows. Coincidentally, Va-nu-pieds and I had been speaking about mosquitoes while visiting the area. He claims that there are never more than ten mosquitoes in Paris at any one time, but that nine of them happen to live in his neighborhood. If so, then I found the tenth on the August night that I spent in the Hotel Aviatic.

Her bzzz entered my Willy-Wonka dream of raspberry walls, chocolate chairs, and vanilla stripes. I first swatted at my ears, then threw (nice) pillows at ghosts. In my apartment, the rare sound of a mosquito in the night inspires me to plug a toxic strip into the wall in the hopes that my nervous systems will resist it better than the mosquito’s. But here at the hotel I had no choice but to turn on the light and set out for the hunt.

It was brief hunt, actually, for within a minute I managed to applaud her to death.

After that, I tried the air conditioning and slept quite well.

In the morning, the deep, distant rumbling of the metro can be felt in apartments and hotels throughout Paris that lie near subway lines. So it is at the Aviatic. It isn’t a disturbing rumble but rather a dreamy purr, a reminder that that a great, livable city is at hand, one that I would have the pleasure biking through that morning on my way home.

Hotel Aviatic (now Hotel Louison), 105 rue de Vaugirard, just off Boulevard du Montparnasse in the 6th arrondissement. Metro Falguière or Saint-Placide. Tel. 01 53 63 25 50.

* * *

YOUR HOTEL AVIATIC/LOUISON THREE-MINUTE RADIUS GUIDE
This 3-minute radius guide mainly focuses on addresses in the neighborhood to the northern side of Boulevard du Montparnasse, with several forays onto the boulevard and one block south.

You never know when you’ll need one
-Your pharmacy: Pharmacie Necker, 134 rue du Vaugirard. Founded in 1857. Closed Sunday.
-Your uplifting view from the street corner: Down the boulevard to the Eiffel Tower.
-Your scenic morning jog: Right on Boulevard du Montparnasse, right on Boulevard des Invalides to end, left on rue de Grenelle, then right across the Esplanade des Invalides to the Seine. Distance one way: 1.6 miles.
-Your public swimming pool: Beneath the Montparnasse Mall.

Your hunger and thirst
-Your comfortable corner café on a noisy boulevard: La Marquise, corner Rue de Vaugirard and Boulevard du Montparnasse.
-Your local old-time café-bar where it feels like you’ve entered “The Twilight Zone”: Bar des Artisans down Impasse de l’Astrolabe, an alley with a funky name across Bd. du Montparnasse from the hotel.
-Your neighborhood grocery story: Franprix, 48 rue du Montparnasse.
-Your organic grocery and healthy whatnot shop: Bio Génération, 68-70 rue du Cherche-Midi.
-Your cute little fruit and vegetable stand: Le Potager du Midi, 108 rue du Cherche-Midi.
-Your classic, old-fashion, quality bistro specializing in meat dishes: Joséphine (Chez Dumonet), 117 rue du Cherche-Midi. Tel. 01 45 48 52 40.
-Your cozy bistro and tearoom: L’Horloge, 72 rue du Cherche Midi.
-Your basic neighborhood bistro sans chi-chi: Bistrot des Amis, 67 rue du Cherche-Midi.
-Your sweet little lunch and tea room: Mamie Gateaux, 66 rue du Cherche-Midi. Open 11:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
-Your light Berber-leaning lunch and tearoom: Chez les Filles, 64 rue du Cherche-Midi. Open noon – 6 p.m. “Berber Brunch” served Sunday 12:30-5:30 p.m.
-Your delicious, Paris-priced cupcakes: Synie’s Cupcakes, 123 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire. There’s a cake shop, L’Atelier des Gateaux, next door.
-Your neighborhood chocolate shop: Puyricard, a chocolate company based in Provence that has about a dozen outlets in Provence and along the Riviera and two in Paris, one of them at 106 rue du Cherche-Midi.
-Your organic wine shop: Le Gastronaute, 117 rue du Cherche-Midi.
-Your Italian wine shop: Enoteca, 77 rue du Cherche-Midi.
-Your basic selection of ethic restaurants: Run of the mill Chinese, Japanese, and Indian restaurants around the corner on Boulevard du Montparnasse. Also large brasseries and fish/seafood options nearby.

Your notable shops
-Your Paris wedding gown: Les Mariées de Provence, 24 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire.
-Your luxury dog accessories: Dog & Design, 110 rue du Cherche-Midi. www.doganddesign.fr.
-Your second-hand clothing etc. shops: Chercheminippes, 102, 109, 110, 111, 114, 124 rue du Cherche-Midi. Yes, six different shops.www.chercheminippes.com. Open daily.

Historical notes
-Henri Queuille (1884-1970), President of France (more precisely President of the Council of Ministers) during three brief periods from 1948 to 1951, lived at 100 rue du Cherche-Midi from 1933 until his death.
-The composer Maurice Jaubert (1900-1940) lived at 98 rue du Cherche-Midi from 1931 to 1939. He composed the music for a number of famous French films, including by René Clair, Marcel Carné, and Jean Vigo, and his music was also used posthumously by Francois Truffaut. He was mortally wounded in combat during the German Blitzkrieg into northern France in June 1940.
-A museum you’ve otherwise never heard of: Musée National Ernest Hebert, 85 rue du Cherche-Midi, a home-museum dedicated to the artist Ernest Hebert (1817-1908).
-Rue de Vaugirard is the longest rue in Paris, running 2.5 miles through the 6th and 15th arrondissements.
-I spent a night at Hotel Aviatic in August 2009.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Night in the Hotel Aviatic in the 6th Arrondissement appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

In April, I accepted to be a France Revisited guinea pig and test the Normandy Hotel for a weekend in Paris, where I was rendez-vousing with two cousins from America. My assignment: Have a good time, meet Gary (editor of France Revisited) for lunch, send an honest hotel report.

The hotel has a must-be Right Bank location, especially if it’s your first time in Paris. You’re within a few blocks of the Louvre, Place Vendome, Opera Garnier, the Tuileries Garden, window shopping galore, many restaurants (naturally tourist-leaning), and several convenient metro lines. I’d been to Paris a number of times before but this was a first for the cousins. But no matter how many times you’ve been in Paris, you can’t go wrong when you’re staying in a hotel where there are about six gourmet chocolate shops within a five minute’s walk, including the famed hot-chocolate venue Angelina. So the fun part was assured, as was lunch with Gary (a Japanese restaurant on rue Sainte-Anne, see the 2-Minute-Radius Guide that follows below this review). Now for the honest hotel report.

The Normandy Hotel is a former grand hotel that has clearly seen better days and that is biding its time while awaiting the corporate go-ahead for a thorough refreshing. So I’ll begin with the conclusion: if you’re looking for a good price on a central-as-can-be hotel that clearly has history and don’t mind a haphazard, somewhat worn décor then you’ve come to the right place. The cousins and I felt that we’d come to the right place.

The Normandy Hotel, like the other large hotels near the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden (Meurice, Ritz, Louvre, Westin, etc.), was built to cater to the British clientele who would arrive in Paris after debarking in Normandy. It opened its doors in 1877. The overwhelmingly British clientele of the period also explains why this is called the Normandy Hotel rather than the French name and spelling Hotel Normandie.

We were able to check in early, which is another advantage of choosing recession-era travel since hotels are less likely to glower at you for arriving even a minute before check-in time. However, oddity number one, we checked in at the reception, but then we received our key at the concierge’s desk on the opposite side of the lobby, as though following some 19th-century logic. Not a problem per se; it just seemed strange. The concierge was always helpful and best of all there was a distinct lack of snobbery in his attitude. Same goes for other members of the staff. In general, service was fine.

Though in need of refreshing, the Normandy really is quite appealing in a 19th-century sort of way, a welcome change from the modern minimalist hotels that have you trying to figure out what some Philippe Stark-like contraption is doing in your bathroom or wondering where they hid the TV and the mini-bar.

The décor throughout the hotel is a comely mix of French styles, with a clear longing for the Belle Epoque of the late 19th century. I didn’t notice the styles at first because I was immediately struck upon entering the lobby by two chandeliers, a mix of art deco boldness and Florida resort opulence, looking for all the world like big, ungainly slabs of cut glass stuck into wood. They were undoubtedly once a sign of elegance, but now they mostly look like suicide tools for spurned lovers. Gary commented that sometimes the point of decoration in a hotel (or a resort) is simply to be noticed and to let you know that someone had to be awfully careful hanging the damn thing. I did, however, like the circular marble staircase at the back of the lobby, leading to the room; it reminded me of European museums that you visit as much for the space as for the art.

The part of the hotel that truly exudes luxury is the breakfast room. That’s in part because it’s the one area of the hotel that has been restored since it recently made an attempt at being a chic Italian restaurant. It didn’t quite have the right sauce for that, so the restaurant closed, but it makes for a stunning breakfast room with its high ceiling decorated with the gilded initials of the hotel, NH. The breakfast buffet served there was typical and plentiful, including eggs, bacon and sausages for the Americans, cheese and sliced deli meats for the Germans and wonderful croissants, pastries and cereals for the French.

Though the hotel is no longer defined by its British travelers, the bar still leans stiffly to England with its dark wood and stuffed leather chairs. As with many English-style bars it comes off as a rather masculine place. Unfortunately, the cousins and I didn’t find any men there, by which I mean barmen, since it was always closed when we rolled in after midnight with thoughts of a nightcap. That may be the natural result of staffing shortage in a delightfully faded hotel, or perhaps just someone’s way of telling us that we’d had enough and should go straight to bed.

We had modest rooms that were ideal for our needs and budget. The bedding in our rooms was superb and everything was clean. Bizarrely, all rooms come with two heaters; the real heat comes from the heater/ac floor unit that, quite frankly, is not pretty and takes up valuable floor space in the more modest rooms. What were the vents in walls near the ceilings for, I wondered? Bizarre point number 2: my room came with a whirlpool bath, but there was no way to turn it on. Someone had sealed up the controls. Now, I did not ask for a whirlpool bath when reserving the room, and I was simply excited at the prospect of having a bath—my apartment in Nice only has a shower—but I was a bit disappointed to find that the whirlpool bit did not work. The bath though was heavenly. A white, fluffy robe completed the bliss.

On a tour of the hotel with Gary and the hotel’s assistant director, I also visited three different junior suites, all spacious, airy and decorated in 19th century British or French style and colors; the ceilings were tall and had the original cornices. We sometimes had our doubts about the details but didn’t mind the old-fashion atmosphere. The décor in some rooms is a bit threadbare and faded; not in a way that put me off, but it was obvious that the hotel group that operates the Normandy had also sealed up the knobs that control the flow of refurbishment money. Though the assistant director assured us that funds were on their way, she just couldn’t say when.

The rack room prices posted on the back of bedroom doors run about 300-500 euros but that’s just someone being hopeful. Gary and I decided that as the hotel now stands (spring 2009) the Normandy Hotel is a worthwhile choice for travelers if you can get a room for under, say, 180 euros (under $250 at the current exchange rate), and a very good chose at under 160 euros for the standard room, perhaps up to 190 euros more for those worn yet spacious junior suites.

For travelers not on a 4-star budget, let’s hope that the funds don’t flow anytime soon so as to take advantage of current pricing as found on the hotel’s website and further discounted on sites such as Expedia. Breakfast may or may not be noted as being included in the indicated price, but when contacting a hotel directly, there’s never any harm in asking them to include breakfast in that indicated price.

Allow me to repeat my conclusion mentioned above: if you’re looking for a good price on a central-as-can-be hotel that clearly has history and don’t mind a haphazard, somewhat worn décor then you’ve come to the right place. We did.

Normandy Hotel. 7 rue de l’Echelle, 1st arrondissement. Metro Pyramides or Palais Royal. Tel. 01 42 60 30 21. www.hotel-normandy.com. The Normandy is part of the Hôtels de Paris group of hotels, www.leshotelsdeparis.com.

© 2009 Stephanie Sommers

Your Normandy Hotel Two-Minute-Radius Guide
By Gary Lee Kraut

Half your guidebook is filled with sights and museums within a mile radius of the Normandy Hotel, so plenty to discover on foot from here. The quarter might be defined by tourism and luxury but that doesn’t make it any less a neighborhood. Here is the two-minute-radius guide for the neighborhood.

Places to keep in mind for:

Your morning jog: Tuileries Garden. See Paris on the Run, an article joggable garden and parks in Paris.

You introduction to the business of operating a café-brasserie: Le Musset Café, 5 rue de l’Echelle. There’s no better introduction to witnessing how things operate in a large café-brasserie in Paris then sitting at any time of day at the copper counter across the street from the hotel.

Your gas station if you forgot to fill the rental car before entering Paris: Esso, 342 rue Saint Honoré

Your grand view: Standing on Avenue de l’Opéra with a view of the Garnier Opera, the Comédie Française, the Hotel du Louvre, the Louvre, and the metro entrance circa 2000.

Eating and Drinking

Polished bistro: L’Absinthe, 24 place du Marché St Honoré. Tel 01 49 26 90 04.

Old-fashion wine bar: Le Rubis, 10 rue du Marché St Honoré. Tel 01 42 61 03 34.

Japanese restaurants: Rue Sainte-Anne, on the opposite side of Avenue de l’Opéra, is full of Japanese restaurants since food-wise it is Paris’s Little Japan.

Charming little café terrace: Le Passage Saint Roch, 15 rue des Pyramides.

Chocolate: Michel Cluizel, 201 rue St. Honoré. As mentioned in the review above, there’s more chocolate beyond the 2-minute radius, including hot chocolate at Angelina, the famous tea room.

Fine hotel bar, when yours is lifeless or closed: Hotel du Louvre, Place André Malraux. The Hotel du Louvre was the first luxury hotel of Paris when it opened in 1855 at what is now the Louvre des Antiquaires, across the square from the current location, which opened in 1887. The hotel is mentioned in several of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Sigmund Freud stayed here in 1910 while trying to figure out the relationship between Mona Lisa’s smile and Leonardo de Vinci’s childhood.

Also in the ‘hood

Unique boutique: Le Comptoir de l’Aviation, 3 rue d’Argenteuil. Articles for aviation enthusiasts. Tel. 01 42 60 26 66.

Oh la la!: L’Abys, a swinger’s club at 13 rue d’Argenteuil.

Museum: Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 107 rue de Rivoli. Click here for museum site. Click here for article about its permanent collection on France Revisited.

Historical notes

Famous Frenchmen entombed nearby: Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), playwright; André Le Notre (1613-1700), father of French gardens; Charles de l’Epee (1712-1789), abbot who codified sign language; Comte de Grasse (1722-1788), count who fought in the American Revolution, notably the Battle of Yorktown, and who is honored by a plaque placed by the Cincinnati Club of France in 1931. The tombs of these men are found in Eglise Saint-Roch, corner rue St. Honoré and rue St. Roch. St. Roch is a handsome parish church whose first stone was laid in the presence of young Louis XIV in 1653 and that was completed 70 years later early in the reign of Louis XV.

Famous Frenchwoman who lived nearby: Olympe de Gouges had a pied à terre at 270 rue St. Honoré. Born 1748, widowed at 18, she was ahead of her time as a female combatant for social equality under the monarchy and then during the Revolution. She made her voice known as an abolitionist deploring black slavery and as a feminist who drafted the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen” (1789) at a time when the men expanding the Revolution were touting “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citzen” (1791). She famously declared that if a woman has a right to climb the scaffold (i.e. go to the guillotine) she has the right to climb the rostrum (i.e. to speak out). During the Terror she spoke out against the dictatorship of those who had taken power and of the need for greater democracy, which led to a cursory trial where she wasn’t allowed to be represented by a lawyer, and the “right to climb the scaffold” in November 1973.

Stephanie Sommers spent two nights at the Normandy Hotel, April 2009

Two-minute-radius guide © 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Night at the Normandy Hotel, Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Doubly unfaithful. The first infidelity was to have slept there in the first place since I already have an apartment in Paris. The French, naturally, has an excellent verb for such infidelity: découcher, meaning that you chose to sleep (coucher) elsewhere. You may just have stayed out all night having fun or avoiding going home, but presumably you did in fact lie down somewhere, probably not alone.

I slept alone that night, but I hereby confess that several times that afternoon, evening, and following morning I caressed another… cat.

It’s no secret to readers of this site that I write at home in the company of a chartreux named Moumoon. Nor is it a secret that Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche has a house cat, Sputnik. While other hotels put forth their fitness center or bar, the Saint Paul puts forth its cat. Rather, Sputnik puts himself forth as he lies across the reception desk, graces a nearby armchair, or asserts his languid presence in the little lobby. He is more than simply the hotel’s mascot—he is its central character. At age 15, on daily thyroid medication, he has likely been photographed by every passing traveler with the slightest affection for fur.

So while my Moumoon stayed at home, possibly rushing to the door whenever he heard steps on the stairwell, I unfaithfully sojourned at the Saint Paul, where I admired, photographed, inquired about, and caressed Sputnik.

Late that evening, having come back from a sit at the beer bar La Pinte followed by dinner at the folkloric restaurant Polidor (see below) and now trying to strike up a conversation with the night watchman, who would have been happy enough to hand me my key and send me on my way and who seemed not to comprehend (and was possibly annoyed by) a visitor’s interest in the cat, I was momentarily ashamed to have left Moumoon on his own. There’d been that look in his eyes as I was packing my toiletries as if to say: Is this going to be like that time you left me little more than a meager lunch then came home two days later smelling like a 30-year-old returning from a weekend geek convention?

Some will think I’m joking about feline infidelity, but anyone who has ever briefly gone AWOL from a pet, a kid, a spouse, or a garden can understand. Nevertheless, the key to enjoying any infidelity is to take full advantage of it while it lasts and to not carry home guilt like a foreign fruit whose parasites might infect your own garden. This in mind, I handed the key back to the night watchman and went out again. Why feel unfaithful to Moumoon, I realized, when I can be faithful to my task as a researcher exploring the neighborhood? So I went to Le Père Louis, the crowded wine bar at the corner, for local flavor.

I’m undoubtedly preaching to the choir of guiltless infidels if your interest in reading this piece is to know whether or not Saint Paul is recommendable for your own découching.

It is indeed.

Nestled on a fairly quiet street between the Luxembourg Garden and Boulevard Saint-Michel, 3-start Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche has been in the same family for four generations. This allows for a personalized touch to the 31 rooms. Each has a different wall fabric, paint or paper—one striped, one faux marble, one painted over paper, one monkey-themed. Some have exposed beams. There’s one with a tester bed, another, facing a little enclosed ground-floor garden, with starry dots of light above the bed in case you’re in the mood for a touch of kitsch romance. All have AC. Room space is tight, as is to be expected in this price range in this quarter. And as is to be expected in a 17th-century building, the breakfast room cozily occupies the even older basement, and the ceilings get lower from floor to floor as you rise in the building, while the view gets airier.

This is all in all a well-situated, well-appointed hotel of contemporary warmth and old-fashion charm. The rates are favorable in view of the comfort of the rooms, the freshness (in most cases) of the décor, and the location by the Luxembourg Garden.

I’d been given a small suite under the eves, quiet as can be but for a hushing flow of ventilation. Entering and leaving (twice) in the evening I had the impression that I was the only guest that night even though I was told that the hotel was 80% full. My suite had wide rust, brown, mustard, and white stripes and a view out back over the recreation ground of Lycée Louis Legrand, one of Paris’s most high-achieving high schools. No need to worry about the noise out back; students there don’t recreate, they study. The night view from my window was dark but for several lit windows on the top floor of a building on Boulevard Saint-Michel, the dome of the chapel of the Sorbonne, and beyond that the dome of the Pantheon.

Rooms on the street side are a tad larger (though still of modest size) and are also likely to be calm at night, though there might be a bit of post-party chatter on a Saturday night when clubbers exit the Urgence (Emergency) Bar next door.

The bedding was a bit soft for my taste, though the down comforter was indeed comforting and the room sterling quiet, as befits the home of a tired old cat and a night of peaceful infidelity.

I washed my hands before going home.

[Update: Sputnik is no long with us, other than in memory. Neither is Moumoon. The hotel is still worthy for its category.]

***

Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche, 43 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, 6th arrondissement. Tel. 01 43 26 98 64. This is a 3-star hotel. See hotel website for rates. As with all hotels, ask if any promotional rates are available when reserving. [Jan. 2011 postscript: Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche has a new mascot kitty named Skype.]

Historical notes
American writer Richard Wright (1908-1921) lived at 14 rue Monsieur le Prince from 1948 to 1959. French composer Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) lived at the same address from 1877 to 1889. Notice the beautiful doorway there.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), French father of sociology and founder of positivism, lived at 10 rue Monsieur le Prince from 1841 to 1857.
I spent a night at Hotel Saint Paul in November 2008.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Night at Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche: Infidelity on Rue Monsieur le Prince appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.