I am traveling to Paris with my wife the first week of October and our daughter and her husband will travel from Germany to meet us there. It is really the first time in Paris for all of us (With the exception of brief business trips or when very young) I can get rooms with points at the Courtyard by Marriott Paris Boulogne. I want to take advantage of the free rooms in Paris, but do not want to do so if I am going to be in an area that has no night life (not clubs) but restaurants, etc and will be a chore to get to the city center for all the tourist sites. Anybody stay in this area or another that is in Paris, but not in the areas covered by Rick's books. Any advice?
Posted by
Stuttgart, Germany
3050 posts
It will be a chore to get to the city center, there's no doubt. Look at a map of Paris, you'll see there's a ring road. Staying outside of it is a PITA. I've stayed near the road (but "inside" in the past and even that is a bit of a hassle, although I didn't have much choice because of my budget. Reviews of the hotel say it's a 10-15 minute walk to the Metro, then a 20 minute ride to say, Ill de Cite. That's of course assuming you make a good connection and don't have to wait another 10 minutes for a train to come through, in which case you're looking at 40 minutes. If you need to connect at another Metro station to go somewhere outside the St. Germain/Left Bank/Ill de Cite area, you're looking at an even longer trip. On the plus side, you're near two different lines (9 and 10) and the 10 does go direct to the area mentioned above. Also, reviews state that there's a good selection of restaurants and grocery stores nearby and that the area is nice. So it depends, are you willing to commit to the commute? If so, it seems great. Free rooms are hard to beat. But, I have done enough commuting in Paris, personally, to last a lifetime and prefer to stay more central, but it's an individual call and depends on your budget.