Royal Saint Honore - Paris, France     

I have been to Paris many times, but I never had a hotel outside the 3rd , 4th, or 5th arrondissement. This time I thought: Christmas-time, let’s do something else. So I took a hotel in the 1st, on the Rue Saint Honoré, one of the main shopping arteries of Paris, running more or less parallel to the Rue de Rivoli. Bad idea. I didn’t really get to like the area. The Rue St. Honoré is in fact a rather nondescript street, where by day the whole world is on a continuous shopping spree, where in the afternoon oneway traffic gets bogged down, and where by night streets empty rapidly. Many bars and cafés even close down. The heroic ones that stay open, are empty. Being very near Place Vendôme, the Opera, and the Madeleine isn’t of much use. This isn’t the nicest part of the city to go out. All those closed boutiques and magasins don’t really help to create atmosphere. And as a tourist you have no right to complain about the fact that most of the people that you meet are tourists, but you would still like to run into a Frenchman now and then. And I don’t mind paying to much - stay away from Paris if you do - but I definitely mind being told that I can have no ¼ pichet of wine (costing 18 euros), because one is only allowed pichets at dinner, and I certainly mind being than offered a glass of wine for 9 euros. In France! No Frenchman would ever enter the café of course. I was warned though. The bar, very close to the hotel, was called Coupe d’Or (The golden cup). There are some excellent restaurants nearby, but most of the time you won’t get in unless you reserved. The Vefour is booked full weeks in advance. Many others seemed to me very mediocre. The ones where I ate were. In the end I ate twice at Bofinger, at Bastille, where there are many tourists as well, but where the asmosphere is vibrant and food is fine. I suppose that if you want to stay in the 1st, the best thing to do is stay at the Ritz, at Place Vendôme. Than you at least don’t have to leave your hotel to find a restaurant, or a bar. I found one pleasant bar in one of the sidesteets of the Rue de la Paix, Tootsie. The hotel where I stayed, the Royal St. Honoré, was reasonable, but nothing more. The hotel has a small, but sleek looking lobby, behind it an elegant breakfast-area, where the (on this site called incomparable) Parra briskly rules like a (4-star) general, and next to the lobby a bar cum (simple) restaurant, empty most of the time, except at dinner in the afternoon, when shoppers flood the place. Service at the desk was excellent and personnel is really helpful, but the room I was given (nr. 307) was very average, to put it mildly. It was small, rather dark, and was overlooking an inner courtyard. It had a good bathroom, an lcd-television, but a very small closet, with the kind of clotheshangers which are very irritating. I slept in a two star hotel in Padua this summer which had better rooms. Paying some 1100 euros for four nights (including breakfast) is to much for what you get. Breakfast itself was okay, but not that special. If I would have had to pay € 27.50 for it, (which I probably did anyway) I would’nt have taken it. When I asked if there was a kiosk nearby, I was told that there were papers in the breakfastroom. There I found USA today, and a Figaro. So I went to pick up Le Monde and Libération every morning. Opposite the hotel is a garage, which does add some couleur locale. Nearest metrostop ( a few hundred metres) is Tuileries, on the Rue de Rivoli, on line nr. 1, Vincennes-Défense. Cross the Rivoli, walk straight on into the narrow sidestreet, first to the left, two hundred metres, and there you are.

This is hotel in is a great location, walking distance to Seine River and Louvre etc. The hotel was excellent, rooms smallish but well appointed. The staff were extremely helpful. Breakfast was very good and you have a wide choice of food. There are plenty of places to eat and all within walking distance. Will stay here again.