California Saint Germain - Paris, France     

This is my sixth trip to Paris in as many years, and normally I have very good luck with hotels in the Latin Quarter. This hotel was the exception. Problems: filthy, worn-out carpet in hotel room, would not walk on it in bare feet, a number of strange red stains on the fabric-covered hotel room walls (blood? vomit? wine? who knows!), an elevator that creaked and groaned so loud it sounded like someone was dragging furniture from one end of the hotel lobby to the other all night long, every night. And my room was 4 doors away from the elevator; I pity whoever had the room right next to the elevator. After two days the hair dryer in the bathroom fell apart, leaving me with a hose dangling from the wall, shooting out hot air. Then the light in the bathroom popped out of its ceiling fixture and the bulb was left swinging on a cord above the sink. Neither problem was ever fixed by houskeeping or management. The walls of this hotel were so thin, I could hear the person in the next room coughing as if he were laying in bed next to me (but, hey, at least the coughing drowned out the sound of the elevator at times). The only good thing I can say about this hotel is that the bed linens were clean and were washed daily as were the towels in the bathroom. I am not someone who spends a lot of time in my hotel room on vacation, but even the few hours I had to spend in this room sleeping and showering were a few hours too many! Bottom line: you can find hotels in this neighborhood that are twice as nice as the Hotel California for the same money. Living it up at the Hotel California? Not!