Luxury and boutique hotel destinations
Become a member

Boutique hotels in Paris

City break, Paris, France

Paris Overview

France

Cityscape
Boulevards and brasseries
City life
Born to be bon vivants

Paris is a dream project for pedestrians, with endless secrets hidden away from all the wonderful clichés.

Whether you’re at the top of Montmartre or the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, in the Louvre or on the Left Bank, Paris is chic to its bones and still pushing style frontiers. Between the gothic cathedrals and grand neoclassical avenues are timely flashes of futuristic bravura: La Grande Arche, the Pompidou Centre and L’Institute du Monde Arabe all proving that Paris’ revolutionary spirit is still very much alive and kicking. Hold hands in a fleamarket, hunt down fashion and foodie delicacies in the Marais, pay tribute to boutique pioneer Colette, then, when you’ve filled your boutique boots, head to Belleville or Oberkampf for a shot of gritty realism.

Perfectly Paris

Visit Musée Carnavalet on Rue de Sévigné for an engaging history of the 1789 revolution. Turn teatime into an elegant ritual at Mariage Frères on Rue du Bourg-Tibourg. Feast your eyes at Crazy Horse on Avenue George V (www.lecrazyhorseparis.com) – a cabaret performance in a small theatre where drinks are brought to your seat, meaning you never have to tear your gaze from the semi-naked burlesque dancing girls. Bonheur at the legendary Lido Theatre on Avenue des Champs-Elysées (www.lido.fr) is another kitsch cabaret show that can be lots of fun.

Local knowledge

Taxis
Can be hailed in the street if you’re more than 100 metres from a rank (these are all over Paris and have phones if no taxi is waiting).

Tipping culture
In bars, leave small change amounting to about 10 per cent. Restaurants usually state service compris, but it is polite to leave change.

Siesta and Fiesta
Parisians hit their favourite cafés and patisseries around 7am for breakfast; shops are usually open 10am–7pm; restaurants get busy around 9pm; and clubs often stay open till dawn.

Packing tips
Sunglasses, silk scarf, cigarette holder, Edith Piaf CD. Maps: taxi drivers can be uncertain sometimes. If you don’t speak French, a phrasebook is useful, especially in restaurants.

Recommended reads
Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway; Paris: Capital of the World by P L R Higonnet; Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell; Perfume by Patrick Süskind. Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette; The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis.

Cuisine
If you only do one thing in Paris, let it be sipping a crème or a pastis at a boulevard bistro: whatever your wont (still-walking steak, croque monsieur, rillettes, warm chèvre salad or tarte tatin), it will taste immeasurably better eaten at a round alfresco table on a cane chair. Paris is also renowned for its dainty tea houses and French fancies – by which we mean mouthwatering millefeuilles, melting macaroons and buttery pastries. Ladurée is beloved of fashionistas for its pretty pastel macaroons; Mariage Frères is one of the finest tea rooms; and you’ll often see a scrum queuing outside haute pâtissier Pierre Hermé on Rue Bonaparte in chic St Germain (+33 1 43 54 47 77; www.pierreherme.com). We love his praline-packed 2,000 Feuilles.

Currency
Euro (€).

Dialing codes
Country code for France: 33. Paris: 1.

Do go/don't go
Paris grinds to a halt in August, the national holiday. We love springtime, when the blossom is out.

Don't go home without

… getting lost: Parisian delights are more often found off the beaten path: musicians practising in a quiet leafy square; buying a few cartes postales at an independent stationery shop; a perfect café crème on a spring morning; stumbling into a back-street art studio.