Hôtel de la Place du Louvre

NileGuide Expert tip:

Take advantage of the hotel's nearness to the Louvre and visit the museum early on a Sunday when it's less busy

Description:

• With just 20 rooms to look after, the staff in this three-star boutique hotel - who say they can muster a command of the English, Spanish, German and "Luxembourg" languages between them – are renowned for their helpfulness. Though it is fairly contemporary inside, the building reflects the antiquity of its Right Bank location. Each bedroom is named after an artist (Mondrian, Picasso, etc), but the décor is fairly neutral, and avoids some of the excesses of the more outré design hotels. The 12th-century church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois (not to be confused with the Left Bank Saint-Germain) is nearby and apparently the hotel's vaults once once connected with the Louvre. Given the title of the "Cave des Mousquetaires", these same vaults are now the hotel's breakfast room. Being small and slow, as is so often the case in Paris, the lift is barely adequate to service the hotel's five floors. But the location trumps everything. You can walk to the Louvre, across Pont Neuf to Notre Dame and the Left Bank.
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