So we've covered three days of our Paris adventures so far and are rapidly running up a long list of our favourite haunts in Paris to drink cocktails, indulge in delicious French food and shop til your credit card cries. However you can't do any of this without making the very important decision of where to stay!
We thought long and hard about this and narrowed our choices down using the following criteria....not too far out, not in a tourist hell, not too expensive and big enough for all three of us Mice...not too much to ask then! For us, the key is that all we really need is a place to rest our weary paws at the end of the night. If it looks pretty it's a bonus, if it serves a scrummy breakfast even better. Obviously Carrie's suite at Hotel Plaza Athenee overlooking the Eiffel Tower would have been immense, but with rooms starting at several hundred Euros we decided that it wasn't really necessary!
Image via http://littlecovedesign.blogspot.co.uk
After much searching I came across Le Citizen, if you didn't catch our Paris Day One blog post, this is located in North East Paris along the Canal St Martin. A super cool area with tonnes going on and a little less touristy than your standard hotel locations, I'd say this is the Shoreditch of Paris!
The location isn't slap bang in the middle of the Champs Elysee but it's only a ten minute cab journey from Gare du Nord and a fifteen minute Metro ride to La Concorde - hardly a long way from Central Paris, you can't really complain!
Le Citizen is a small boutique hotel with 12 rooms, ranging from the modest City Room to the roomy Citizen Apartment (perfect for a family with two bedrooms and two bathrooms). The interior is modern and minimal but with some personal touches to make you feel at home. We stayed in the Zen suite on the 4th floor overlooking the canal, perfect as all three of us could stay in the same room which makes it much more fun!
We had one huge bed which could have slept about four people and then there's a clever little sofa which can magically be transformed into a luxury bed if required. Middle mouse opted for the magical sofa bed on the first night and loved it so much that she didn't want to move for the rest of our stay! The beds are super comfy and the bed linen is amazingly soft...very important for the perfect Parisian night's sleep, however so very tricky to force yourself out of in the morning!
The rooms come complete with a flat screen TV, tonnes of wardrobe space (if we managed to fit all our collective long weekend outfits, you know we're talking super spacious...) and an en suite bathroom with either a shower or a bath (we got a bath which was much appreciated with the chilly winter temperatures!).
So far, so amazing. But it was the sweet extra touches that really made the hotel memorable and even more of a bargain! Firstly you get complimentary bottled water in your room each day - one fizzy and one still and the mini bar is also complimentary - if you don't have what you want in yours, all you need to do is call reception and they'll do their best to help! Secondly each day when we returned there were little home baked treats waiting for us under a glass dome...biscuits or cakes - all very yummy and a lovely surprise! Finally you're also given an iPad on check-in to use for the duration of your stay. Fully loaded with Paris related apps and all the information you could ever need about the hotel and surrounding area, I thought this was a great idea and came in super handy for us Mice! What could be more useful in an unknown city? It meant that we were able to look up restaurants and bars and maps and directions for anywhere that we were headed and plan our days out in advance which made everything a lot less stressful!
What also added extra charm to our stay were the staff. So happy to help in any way they could in order to make our stay that little more special. We arrived in Paris at 11am but our check in wasn't until 1pm. This wasn't an issue though, instead our bags were looked after in the hotel and the man on reception immediately quizzed us on our day's plan and where we off to so he could help. Before we knew it, he was Googling the address of our first stop, Angelina, giving us clear instructions of how to get there and where the Metro was (even including a little shopping detour en route). He rechecked three times that we knew where we were going before letting us loose on Paris' streets!
When we returned that evening we were immediately told that at 6pm there would be complimentary canapes and wine in the breakfast room / comfy seating area for all guests! We of course took them up on their kind offer - we sat chatting, flicking through the millions of coffee table books and Paris guides they provide for guests and sipped our wine! This is a daily occurrence and on New Year's Eve the wine was swapped for complimentary champagne instead - a very sweet touch...
All in all i can't fault the hotel, it was the perfect base, comfortable, clean, quirky and modern with very sweet and thoughtful ideas and extras. Rooms start at 179 Euros a night, however it actually worked out better value booking a larger room like ours, as with a three adult occupancy the price comes down to approximately £85 per person per night - not bad at all for a perfect room in Paris!!
