Flights to Paris, booked. Schedule of events in Paris, sorted.
All that was left was to find a suitable overnight hotel. Simple.
Or so I thought.
For this trip I had set myself a budget of £80 for a one night stay in the hotel. It didn’t need to have breakfast included, its Paris! Croissants and tea was all around us. So I started my usual searches, asking google to come up with quirky, boutique hotels, ideally somewhere with a good view of the city or somewhere close to the Champs Elysees, as this was where we would be spending the majority of our time.
There were some fabulous options, but they were out of budget and then there were some mediocre options within my price range. At the end of it I settled on an offer from lastminute.com, Hotel le Pierre Paris, a four star hotel not far from the Arc de Triomphe.
I was impressed at the price for the four star and was satisfied I had done the right thing. It was only after booking that I did a bit more research and found that le Pierre was not a popular place. Tripadvisor reviews stated the rooms were unclean, staff were rude, the hotel was outdated… it went on and on. My heart sank and I desperately tried to cancel and book elsewhere but alas we were tied in. We just had to hope for the best, after all it was just the one night, non?
On arriving early morning in Charles De Gaulle we took the train straight to the city and then the metro towards our hotel, we wanted to drop our bags and get straight into our trip. As it was mo’s birthday treat I was so nervous, I was willing the hotel to be good and not put a dampner on the weekend.
Well, it worked! The hotel was absolutely fine, I don’t know what I was so worried about.
Only a short walk from the metro, the staff at Hotel le Pierre were lovely from the minute we walked in. Took our bags without any hassle, showed us the facilities to freshen up before we ventured back out and all was done with a smile and kind word. I was so relieved. We went out for the afternoon to the Champs Elysees, a simple 15min walk. The location was spot on.
After an afternoon out we went back to freshen up before dinner (and drop off our many purchases) the room was ready for us, and ok so the interior wasn’t out of this world but I thought it was quintessentially french and the room provided everything we may have needed. It was clean and secure with a lovely window looking out on the quiet street below. Everything in the room worked and as it was quite warm that weekend the room had a good ac unit that kept us cool at night (an essential for me).
We were in and out of the hotel alot, returning late at night and we saw a number of different staff and all were lovely, making polite conversation, a joke here and there.
If you are venturing to Paris for a long weekend I would most definately recommend this hotel, Mo and I would stay there again. There was no fuss, the hotel was fully booked but we had no issues with noise.
On short breaks you know what they say… location, location, location! For the budget we were on, It couldn’t have been any more perfect.
Make sure you have a good shop around before booking, there were some good deals going for this hotel which we were lucky enough to take advantage of and you should too.
All in all, we would definitely stay here next time we hit a weekend in Paris.
Click here to visit the Hotel Le Pierre website
Anyone else found a gem like this amongst a heap of bad press??
