Weddingbee

This will be a multiple part series, as I want to share a lot of information that I hope will help you plan your Paris honeymoon. 

Guidebooks 

Before leaving for Paris, I purchased a copy of the Paris Eyewitness Travel Guide and Rick Steves’ Paris 2007. The Eyewitness Guide is filled with beautiful pictures, but I found the Rick Steves book to be much more helpful as it was full of insider tips - it was the only one I carried around Paris with me.  It’s lacking as far as hotel and restaurant recommendations however, so I’d definitely hit the internet to do research on those topics (tripadvisor and virtualtourist are my go to sites).

Hotels 

We stayed at the Hotel de Latour Maubourg in the Les Invalides area. After reading positive reviews on tripadvisor (it’s the 9th ranked hotel for Paris), I made a reservation directly through the hotel’s website. 

The decor of the hotel was utterly charming and quintessentially Parisian, and the staff were extremely friendly and helpful.

The lobby. I loved the vibrant colors they used throughout.

The downstairs lounge with a breakfast restaurant, a steam bath, and computer with free wifi.

This is a bad picture, but our room was so cute!  Not shown is a large armoire, fireplace, and make-up table/vanity.  It was a good size room as I hear that most Parisian hotel rooms are very small. The only downside was that the only English tv channel was CNN.

From our balcony, we saw large groups of children walking to school each day.  It was great to be able to observe local life.  One of the most charming things about Paris is that virtually every apartment has at least a small balcony where you can place flowers.

The bathroom (picture taken from the viewpoint of the toilet )

My mom loved the location of our hotel and thought it was the best area to stay in Paris - relatively quiet, full of locals, and directly across the street from the Latour Maubourg metro stop, bus #69 stop, and a taxi stand.  We were within a short walk of the Eiffel Tower, the Orsay Museum, and the Rue Cler street markets.  It was very convenient, and I highly recommend Hotel Latour Maubourg for anyone visiting Paris.  But for any future trips, I would stay in the Marais area which was my favorite neighborhood.  It has a West Village/classic Parisian vibe to it, with tons of cool boutiques.

We paid 300 Euros a night for a superior room, which is on the pricer side. You can definitely find nice hotel rooms in Paris for around 150 euros. These were two recommendations I received: the Albe Hotel in the Latin Quarter (great location, friendly staff, most bang for your buck), and The Caron de Beaumarchais in Marais (romantic hotel with Parisian feel).

Other great areas to stay include St. Germain, near the Louvre/Palais Royal (Paris center), Opera/Place Vendome (near malls/may be pricey), and the Champs Elysees (pricey). 

But the best piece of advice I can give regarding what area to stay is that it really doesn’t matter where you stay in Paris! The center of Paris where you’ll do almost all your sightseeing is about the width of Manhattan from west to east. Everything is easily accessible by multiple train lines (the metro), which come by every couple of minutes. Though it may take a day to get used to, soon you’ll have no trouble getting anywhere you want to go via metro. We only took a cab once the entire time we were there.

If you have any questions, comment below and I’ll try my best to help! 

What guidebooks/areas/hotels in Paris would you recommend?

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