Paris Guide

• Hotels - Our Choice
  Our choice of Paris's best character hotels.
• Hotels - Instant Booking
  Dozens of Paris hotels, with instant online booking. Great for last minute availability.
  
• Essential Paris
  Quick guide to France's capital.
  
• Paris Feature
  Catherine Chambers tackles the Eiffel Tower
  
• Cheap Flights to Paris
  From 64 pounds return (from UK)
• Hotelgenie recommends...
  Hotel du Marais, Le Marais **
  You'll find this hotel tucked away on a small street in the heart of Les Marais. Located right between two metro stops, it provides the budget traveller with a warm and friendly base from which to explore all that Paris has to offer. Bedrooms are comfortably arranged and are all equipped with en-suite bathrooms, television and phone line. Continental breakfast is either served downstairs or to your room (on request) every morning...more info
  

Hotels
Our choice of Paris's best character hotels.

Hotel Westminster ****
nr. Place Vendome, Paris
A hotel with an intriguing history, a great location and, in part thanks to a recent renovation, high levels of comfort and service... (more)

Hotel Bel Air Beaubourg ***
Rue Rampon, Paris
Attractive city centre hotel gets the vote over most mid-price rivals by virtue of the unusually full list of facilities on offer... (more)

Hotel Corona Opera ***
Cite Bergere, Paris
A hotel of genuine elegance with a range of facilities that is hard to beat at this price range, including, and this really is unusual for small and medium sized Paris hotels, a car park... (more)

Hotel du Centre***
Rue Geoffroy-Marie,Paris
This modern hotel boasts a licensed bar, reading room and easy access to the cultural centre of France's capital. It has recently been refurbished to a high, character-rich, standard... (more)

Hotel Louvre St Honore ***
Rue Saint Honore, Paris
With bags of facilities and suitcases full of charm, the Hotel Louvre St Honore is an excellent mid-priced hotel with a top location to boot... (more)

Hotel Opera Cadet ***
Rue Cadet, Paris
Built in 1988 and renovated a year ago, this gracious hotel offers plenty of modern facilities. Whether you're in Paris for business or pleasure you'll be glad of the gym, steam room and sauna. The indoor garden is a peaceful place to relax... (more)

Hotel Trinite Plaza***
rue Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Paris
This thoroughly refurbished hotel exhibits the best of modern design. Features include a top central Paris location, relaxing lounge and well-stocked bar... (more)

Hotel du Marais **
The Marais, Paris
Located in one of the prettiest areas of Paris, the Hotel du Marais is a real find for visitors to the great city who are looking for a value-for-money base from which to explore... (more)

More Paris Hotels...
Dozens of Paris hotels, with instant online booking. Great for last minute availability.
(more)

Essential Paris
Quick guide to France's capital.

Introduction
Paris has long been the beating heart of European intellectual, political and artistic life but France's capital is also the centre of the most exalted cuisine in the world, a city of great physical beauty, and the home of a thriving pop culture scene. For the visitor the good news is that all these riches are within easy reach of each other either on foot or via the excellent Metro system.

Top Sights
At the centre of the city, on an island in the Seine, stands the Gothic magnificence of Notre Dame Cathedral. Climb up the towers for a superb view of the city, one that is more intimate, though not as all-encompassing, as that offered by the Eiffel Tower over in the west. For an even wider view, there's the mock-Byzantine oddness of Sacre-Coeur, a church that sits on the hill of Montmartre, itself a big tourist area due to its now faded reputation as an artistic district.

For the real thing, the South Bank and its Latin Quarter still beat to the drum of creative culture thanks in part to an abundance of resident students. Hugging the northern bank of the river lie many of Paris's most famous sights.

Running east-west, you get the artistic glories of the Louvre, the promenaders' heaven of the Champs-Elysee and the imperial ambition of the Arc de Triomphe, all in the space of two kilometres.

As well as the Louvre, Paris boasts an abundance of world famous museums and galleries, from the post-modern Pompidou Centre, due to be re-opened in 2000, to the Musee D'Orsay to name just two.

Culture
Besides its reputation as perhaps the major art centre of the world Paris is a magnet for lovers of other established high culture pursuits like opera, ballet, theatre and cinema with legendary venues such as Opera Garnier and Theatre de l'Odeon leading the way. For those who prefer their cultural fix to come wrapped in more multi-cultural colours, pockets of diversity abound, from, to list two examples, live, often African music in Pigalle to the gay triangle in the Marais.

Shopping
From high fashion to huge department stores and flea markets, Paris boasts a range of stores that makes it one of the key shopping experiences of the world. Haute Couture and designer chic are mostly centred around avenue Montaigne and rue du Faubourg-St-Honore, either side of the Champs Elysee. Famous department stores include Au Bon Marche, Galleries Lafayette and La Samaritaine, which features a roof top cafe overlooking the Seine. For bargains, the Marche aux Puces de St-Ouen held to the north of the city, is Europe's biggest flea market.

Nightlife
There is little that needs to be said about French cuisine to convince the visitor to try out some of its finest examples in Paris. Elsewhere, nightlife is still associated in some minds with what are essentially strip joints - such as Crazy Horse or the Moulin-Rouge but there is much, much more to the city's after-hours scene than rows of long-legged women performing to bored businessmen and gullible coach parties.

There's a huge variety of bars catering for quiet drinkers and boisterous gatherings alike. Many have undergone substantial trendification in the past few years. Clubs are dominated in the main by French House music which has earned a world wide reputation while Rai music, which heralds from the North Africa, has recently taken sections of Paris by storm.

Hotels
Paris is well blessed with hotels across most price points. Largely because of the age of the buildings concerned, rooms are often small by modern international standards. Despite the squeeze, above budget price, the majority of rooms manage to come with en-suite facilities. Bargains are to be found in the off-season, especially during November and December.

Essential Info
Currency - The (French) Franc - Fr - is divided into 100 centimes. There are 6.5 Francs to the Euro, and about 6 to the US dollar.

Weather - Winter temperatures rarely slip below freezing, while the summer months rarely see the thermometer go above 30 degrees centigrade.

Airports
Charles de Gaulle. (North of Paris) Also known as Roissy, Paris's main airport delivers visitors to the centre via the RER B train in around 45 minutes. Various mini-buses run to the centre, taking between 45 minutes to an hour, while a taxi ride would last about 30-45 minutes.

Orly. (South of Paris) RER trains take around 45 minutes to the centre of town via a shuttle bus or shuttle train link. Direct buses take about the same time, while taxis complete the trip in approximately half an hour.

Useful Links

• Air France (UK)
  www.airfrance.com/uk
  Cheap deals to Paris and a wide selection of other destinations in France
• Paris Tourist & Congress Office
  www.paris-touristoffice.com/
  Information on restaurants, visits, events, museums, monuments, nightlife, and more.

Hotelgenie.com carefully selects all hotels in this guide to bring you a choice of fine, character-rich establishments, many at exclusive discounts.