Hotel Recamier - Paris, France     

Although you may be tempted by the wonderful location and low prices of this hotel, my advice is to stay away! Not only can the hotel be extremely loud at night, but the staff is exceptionally rude - not just persnickety, but rude in the kind of way that caused conversations between guests and desk clerks to escalate into shouting matches late at night. The staff also seemed to have a hard time managing reservations. They had no record of mine when I arrived, and I noticed that a few other potential guests met with the same fate. The hotel is located on the Place St. Sulpice, which at night becomes a hangout spot for teenagers to drink and play soccer, yelling and bouncing the ball off the facade of the building until the wee hours of the night. During my stay, an Alsace festival with an oompah band occupied the Place, so sleeping during the day was also out of the question. The rooms are tiny, very basic, and moderately clean. The last day of my stay, one of the two housekeepers did not show up for work, so getting breakfast and room cleaning was difficult. The one working housekeeper lectured me about how awful the hotel is. Believe her. This is not beautiful Paris.

I "found" this hotel wandering around Paris last year and the location is fantastic and most beautiful so this year we thought we would give it a go. I was quite concerned reading the reviews in Tripadvisor and began to wish we hadn't booked. However once we arrived we realised what everyone meant! There is something very old fashioned about it and very French. The staff are actually quite helpful but in a quiet way and the room we were in was incredibly quiet but sort of stark! There were no pictures on the walls so the paper was rather dominant and no telly,radio etc which suited us fine but which might put some people off. I think it is a great hotel for site-seeing or if you are on business, but the atmostphere really is reminiscent of several decades ago which is quite fun. I suggest avoiding breakfast...but then there are loads of cafes around and also loads of good restaurants in the area too for diner. I'm not sure we'll go back but on the other hand the quietness is a rare thing bang in the middle of Paris so...we might well!