Hi, my fiance and I are going to Paris for our honeymoon next August. We plan to stay at the Les Jardins du Marais in the 11th arr. Is this area a good one for first time travelers to Paris? We do speak some french (he better than I :D) and aren%26#39;t fearful of a great language barrier, but we don%26#39;t know the %26#39;shady%26#39; parts of Paris. Any advice?
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Bonjour Magpye,
The hotel is actually in the 4eme near the 11eme. You will be very close to Place des Vosges, so you will be in a pleasant area. Near Bastille and on rue de Charonne and rue de la Roquette you will find a lot of very affordable restaurants. Bonne lune de miel.
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Actually, LuckyLuc, the hotel *is* in the 11th. It is on rue Amelot, very close to the St-Sébastien-Froissart métro. That really puts it a bit away from the most charming areas of the Marais and from the livelier areas close to Bastille IMO. I%26#39;d say it is about a ten minute walk to Place des Vosges and close to 15 minutes to the Bastille. Despite its name it is really not in the Marais.
The hotel itself looks very nice though I have never stayed there. Rue Amelot is a rather dull street and the immediate area is not terribly interesting either in my honest opinion. It is also quite a bit removed from most of the tourist sights. It would be a good half hour walk to Notre Dame cathedral, for example, and farther to most other places. There is nothing %26quot;shady%26quot; or unsafe about either the street or the area however. There are some nice restaurants close by.
I think you might be better to look for something just a bit more central, either in the Marais or perhaps on the Île de la Cité (both 4th arrondissement) or in the 6th (St. Germain des Prés) somewhere close to the river.
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Merci pour correction Irish.
Sorry I confused your hotel with Jardins de Paris Marais Bastille at 14 rue Neuve Saint Pierre in the 4ème..
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As a local, I would beg to differ with Irish concerning rue Amelot: Saint-Sébastien Froissart / Cirque d%26#39;Hiver is one of the liveliest areas in town (Bastille/Oberkampf), even more so than the hard core Marais streets, which are a bit gentrified. There are tons of métro stations to choose from, and it is precisely one of the areas I would recommend to first timers, away from dull 7th or touristy Latin Quarter. If there is one thing the Richard Lenoir area is not, it%26#39;s definitel %26quot;shady%26quot;. You can go ahead without any second thoughts, on the contrary.
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Thanks all! Is everyone in agreement that the area is a hike from many of the sites?
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If the hotel were actually in the Cirque d%26#39;Hiver/Oberkampf area I might well agree with you, Bob. As you should know by now that is actually my own preferred area to stay, and I have recommended it many times, even to first-timers. In fact however the hotel is a bit south of rue St. Sebastien, between that and rue St. Sabin. I find this area to be, as I said, not very interesting, being neither quite in the orbit of the Oberkampf area, nor in that of Bastille, nor of the Marais though reasonably close to all three and probably closer to Oberkampf than the others.
I still maintain that rue Amelot, especially in that immediate area, is one of the less interesting streets in the western 11th in any case.
Magpye is coming to Paris for the first time on her honeymoon. It i may be wrong but I suspect that she had a particular idea of Paris in mind (erroneous though that may be for much of the city) when she chose Paris for her honeymoon and I rather think that neither Oberkampf nor, more particularly the specific location of Les Jardins du Marais is quite what she had in mind. It is certainly true that it is away from the more touristy or %26quot;gentrified%26quot; parts of Paris. It is not by any stretch of the imagination what most people would call %26quot;picture postcard%26quot; Paris and none the worse for that IMO. But it is not my opinion that counts here. How about we let her decide?
Magpye, if you go to http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/pj.cgi?lang=en you can enter the address of the hotel, 74 rue Amelot and the city as Paris 11. This will then pull up details of the hotel%26#39;s location. (Pay no attention to the fact that the name of the hotel is different. The Paris online Yellow Pages are not always scrupulously updated.) Now if you click on %26quot;photo%26quot; you can pull up a photo of the hotel and then, using the navigation arrows, you can take a %26quot;virtual walk%26quot; along the street and, with a little work, through the immediate neighbourhood — rue St. Sebastien, rue St. Sabin, rue Pelée, blvd. des Filles de Calvaire, blvd. Beaumarchais, etc. If what you see is what you were looking for in the immediate neighbourhood of your hotel, go for it! You will have made your own decision untrammeled by either Bob_S%26#39;s prejudices or mine.
The Oberkampf/République area just a short distance to the north is indeed lively and has many good cafés and restaurants including a wide variety of ethnic eateries and is currently very %26quot;trendy%26quot; and busy at night especially on weekends.
It is quite possible that I just have a bit of a blind spot as far as the small area round your hotel is concerned. If so, no doubt Bob_S will inform me of the fact. If it were me I%26#39;d rather be a bit farther north and east, but I%26#39;m guessing that you would be happier a bit farther south and west. I have been known to be wrong, though. But I do agree with Bob_S that there is no reason to be concerned about the area shadiness-wise and also about the 7th and the Latin Quarter.
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PS: And yes, it is incontestable that it is quite a bit removed from the usual %26quot;top ten%26quot; Paris sights.
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Thank God, rue Amelot is not in the midst of the action: as much as you and I like rue Oberkampf or rue de la Roquette, we wouldn%26#39;t like to sleep there, would we? Rue Amelot, whilst quiet, is only 5/10 mn away from the action, so, isn%26#39;t this the ideal location?
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Yes Bob, for you, Irish or I (I am on rue Pétion, when in Paris) who are all familiar with the city it is the ideal location. But the point of this post if for Magpye who is going for a first time and on her honeymoon.
Something more typical and touristy would be better for her.
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Bastille is as, if not more, %26quot;typical%26quot; as/than La Huchette or, heaven forbid, rue Cler. As for %26quot;touristy%26quot;, I don%26#39;t recall magpye asking us for any %26quot;touristy%26quot; place to stay (to see, understanbly, yes). And it%26#39;s not as if Bastille was out of the way, por favor! In which case, what would you say about Latour-Maubourg, which is definitely in the middle of nowhere touristwise? And nobody bats an eyelid about the fact that half of the people on this board stay in this Paris Bermuda Triangle.
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