France - Paris

FIRST THINGS FIRST! Do not forget that on our November 2021 trip we swore off British Airways. Their upfront configuration is comically terrible with people having to crawl all over each other. It’s a joke and a scam and they charge you an arm and a leg like it’s still really nice. Nope. BA has gone the way of discount. It is not nice, stop thinking it is.

Anyway…

What’s not to like about Paris?! Well, I could think of a few things, haha. I do happen to love this city. Walking the Champs E’lyses is a must. It’s long as shit. And exhausting. And many parts are boring. But man, it is a must. At worst, get a rickshaw. Fun stuff even though it seems like you are at deaths doorstep for the entire ride. I would say the restaurants on the Champs were formulaic, but the food was still good and eating patio style is always fun.
We got lucky as when we arrived to the Louvre there was almost nobody waiting. We breezed through the line, then breezed right through this way too fucking large and complicated museum. I prayed for an escape while walking down many of those crowded, desperately long corridors. I’ve been at least 3 times and I’ve never gotten tired of being tired of it.
The big bus tour here was perfect for us. You actually learn a lot and don’t have to struggle to see everything. While the bus was totally worth it, the expensive ass skip the line at the Eiffel tower tickets were not. Just make sure when you buy them that there wasn’t a protest earlier in the day, that turned into a riot, that resulted in tear gas being fired, that caused the tower to close, that created a frenzy later in the day for all those people that didn’t get to make it prior. It took an hour to get to the elevator. Now, that being said, oh my god is it worth it. We were pressed for time/peeing in our pants (the first floor is fucking high) so we didn’t go all the way up, but man that object is remarkable. Both being on it, and learning about it. Just amazing.
Bridge with the locks was meh. Food was amazing. Sitting in cafes in tiny French squares on tiny French roads is hard to beat. Omelets. Yeah you heard that right. Omelets. Plus wine during every break and often times in between breaks. And let's not forget "Croque" anything. What's not to like about that. So what that your server hates you, and possibly life in general. He can moisten my croissant with his French tears. They probably taste like butter anyway.

Food Tour September 2024:

Marriott Opera
I do love the opera location cause you can hoof it up to Pigalle or hoof it down to the louvre. My junior suite was pretty nice actually. Hotel isn’t much of a looker from the outside but it’s nice and the hallways crush, it’s like walking through faberge.
Cafe Capucines in Opera is not interesting.
Bullion Chartier in opera is! Man old as shit and just fun. Balthazar style.
Chez Denise in Les Halles is more old school fun with a steak tartare that would make a bold American toss their cookies.
Mouffetard rue still ruels…get it?

Notes to self:

-We had the advantage of having a train workers strike during our visit. Made road traffic tons of fun. But someone strikes weekly anyway so train workers might of actually been the least disruptive for us.
-Mouffetard Street (which is pedestrian "only" at times...French "only" isn't always only "only") is pretty damn perfect. Tiny stores are everywhere and the street dumps into squares and circles all over. It's a great stroll and a great place to nibble and drink.
-Le Maraise near Notre Dame is an upscale neighborhood with designer shops and lots of restaurants with giant patios...usually pretty perfect but we did also notice that women were in extremely short supply at all of the patios we went to. Might as well not go to Europe if women aren't going to be around.
-Saint Michel and Saint Germain streets intersect and form a big nightlife area. Kind of young but still cool.
-We stayed next to the Arc the first night and in the Latin Quarter the second night. Latin Quarter was much much better, but staying on the Champs at least one night was good for our purposes.
-We went to the most amazing French restaurant (Savy) that catered almost exclusively to anyone other than people like us. But the waiter was super nice and patient. Everything we asked for he was like, "well we don't do exactly that, but you are gonna love this." Kind of like saying that everything you guys eat in America is, well, bullshit. Anyway, the natives were considerate enough to just stare at us angrily and not actually throw anything. We had amazing food, amazing wine, and would go back if we ever ended up in paris again. Small, kinda dirty, old as shit, kind of snooty, and perfect as hell.
-Did not go to the Moulin Rouge or the red light area that it's in, even though I've always wanted to. Every time we brought it up all we heard was how shitty that area was. *We went on the most rcent trip and had a blast. The whole area has become quite trendy even. So now there are fun bars and restaurants mixed in with sex shops and cabarets…hard to get better than that.
-Call it Americanized if you like, but I actually prefer my escargots in buttery garlic sauce...and found that very difficult to find this trip.

Most recent...

Le Grand Cafe Capucines - pretty funny to me as it’s like a characture artist drew a Parisian cafe, but its lovable anyway. Romantic and classic cafe French food.
Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee - holy shit. Like holy shit. Not a big place, but as elegant as it gets. Holy shit. We both left saying it was great, and we promised to never do something like that again. That amount of money just for a 2 person dinner would literally be life changing to someone else. And by the way Alain, you could tell people that you are going to charge them extra for EVERYTHING. Of course I want a pre dinner glass of bubbles, but maybe I wouldn’t if I knew it was 30 bucks a glass! Way to go pineapple and pearls in DC, make people feel special, not gross and like money means absolutely nothing. Our table was also like the display table...maybe they thought we were beautiful :)
Buvette, of which there are three, is kind of the perfect cafe. Small place, small menu, perfectly french.

The Hemmingway bar in the hotel Ritz is a ton of fun. We actually saw Dicaprio while there, which was just silly. If you’ve been around, you’ve been to the hemmingway bar in other major cities, super small and in high demand….same shit, different name. A wait should be expected at all times and since they are so busy you must also expect them to act like god’s gift. The experience is still fun even if it can be annoying.

Most recent recent…

Nollinsky hotel restaurant was fantastic. We were nervous when we got there because it was pretty slow, but it filled to the point of bursting at the seams, and then! People literally got up and started dancing to the sick live singer. Too much fun! I have actually never seen that before, truly unusual and fascinating.

Bouillon Chartier had an amazing atmosphere, but man a traditional French menu without even a glimmer of a sandwich. Roast chicken and steak frites for lunch! The place is old school and feels like you are going back in time, but maybe too much for me :)
Bouillon Pigalle was as holy smokes popular as Chartier, but a way way way more modern interior, and a slightly more accommodating French menu, though still very traditional French. I was seeking out bouillon’s on this trip!
Moulin Rouge was hilarious and lame and silly and comical and at the end of the day, absolutely fabulous. The VIP seats with the included bottle of champagne puts you on the upstairs balcony and it was perfect. I might have preferred right in front of the stage, but our own spot right on the balcony railing was hard to beat too. Tough call.

Robert Et Louise was so much fun. Sit upstairs by the fireplace to be in a true French cottage farmhouse experience. Watch out for that barely cooked steak :) Go here again!!!

-Went back in Dec 2023 and stayed at a VRBO in the 8th. We were a 5 minute walk from the champs and it was pretty perfect for our needs. It rained and was windy the whole time on this trip but we made the best of it. New Years Eve at a vegan restaurant…ha! Went back to Robert Et Louise. Went to Crazy Horse instead of Moulin this time and it was great…I might prefer Moulin though because it is at least in Pigalle and Crazy Horse is totally not.

-Oh we got a rez at Libertino and had a blast, same big momma group as circolo in London. That group is fantastic.

La Pigalle Hotel - Dec 2023

The lobby is so young and hip in the moxy direction but way seedier. Like seedy cool I think. We got a suite and it was still kinda small. It worked for our one night needs but it had some challenges. Mini bar was full and welcome. TV had no ppv which was so surprising. 24 hour room service was a welcome touch. Breakfast the next day was minimalist but very Parisian.
The location in Pigalle is perfect and it’s right across from that tiki bar.

Renaissance Vendome - Nov 2021

This location is pretty good with The Marketplace about 4 blocks away (we ate their the first night), the palace de Concorde about 1 block away, and the Louvre maybe 5 blocks away. The street directly parallel has good shopping and restaurants as well. The Ritz and Opera are right down the street and felt very accessible.
The Parisian Suite is one room but with a king bed. Cosy Suite has 2 comical rooms. Neither of these rooms is worth much. The 2 bedroom family “suite” is just 2 rooms with doors behind a single door in the hotel hallway (you’ve seen it a thousand times). There is nothing about it other than 2 rooms that are sort of connected. It was fine for us, but in the US you wouldn’t even call it connecting rooms, they would be connected but not traditionally “connecting”. Basically we closed the single hallway door then propped open our individual room doors, creating a bit of a foyer, but not really.
The breakfast at the restaurant was killer, free for platinum.
The bar and restaurant at night are immensely popular. Like wow. So much fun in such a small space.
The “spa” area is fine. The pictures make it seem far far better. The pool is cool but the best part is probs the hammam. It was like one of the best hotel hammams you will see. Overall the hotel just feels a little smaller than you maybe want it to be. Very tight. Good but not great. The Westin is like right next door and maybe I felt like we should have stayed there. A grand lobby in Paris is just fun, and the Renaissance definitely does not have that.

W Opera - Nov 2018

Look, the hotel is undergoing a major renovation. I mean major. It is going to be great, truly great. Sadly I think I missed the fine print.

In its current state...it's just not good.

Our first room, was outrageously small. Now that's not such a weird thing in Europe and especially Paris, but this was just a basic W room. I have seen them a million times. Normally that works out great but this was a birthday trip! Not to mention the freakin platinum status! Where's my action!? We lasted one night and I called down in desperation. The manager took pity on me and we moved to a suite. The main thing the first room had going for it was the view of the opera house, which admittedly is ridiculously nice, but you open the window and see it and you're done...how many times do you truly need to see an opera house :) The rest of the room was quite meh. The TV kept screwing up, the noise from outside was more than the average person would want, and the bathroom toilet area was incomprehensibly dark.

The second room was great. Not regular W great, but Paris W great. Big enough with a nice separate lounging area and a nice bathroom. The showers were pretty nice in both and the smaller room actually had a cooler one that was sort of in the bedroom but still private. The suite still had an opera view as well. No PPV anywhere which was weird but they had everything else.

The main problem with the hotel are the current amenities. There pretty much are none. There's the standard lounge area but they basically combined that with a bar that wasn't really a bar, and a restaurant that wasn't really a restaurant. Nothing was really open or cool or fun or ready or anything. After coming from the amaze balls W in Amsterdam, this one is pretty sucky. Pretty sick location over all for the hotel, right down from the Vendome. We loved the location and in the future this hotel will be the rad jank, but right now it's decidedly meh.

Seven Hotel - Jun 2014

Sitting in the Latin Quarter is one of the strangest and coolest hotels I’ve ever seen. The lobby is somewhat meh. Kind of tight with a bar area off to the side that serves its purpose (and there is a small outdoor terrace off the bar but it wasn’t much). Each floor has mood lighting and you immediately know that you are someplace special when you get off the elevator.
I never got to see the basic room but my guess is that they are quite decent. Where this hotel shines is in the suites. They have 7 unique and themed suites that are cool as shit. We stayed in the Alice suite (a play on Alice in Wonderland). Lots of unique touches. Minibar with nothing in it :( though. Room service was not 24 hours (and they seemed put out when we called well before their 11:30 or so cut off). Our toilet area was a completely separate room and door after entering the main door.

We had a giant room, a giant bathroom, a nice TV, whimsical shit everywhere, crazy lighting including a ceiling that did all kinds of crazy lighting shapes and movements. Porthole into the vanity and shower room was cool. This place was great.

Staff was super nice, but the place was full.

Notes

-Hotel is a bit of a hike to any main tourist area, but the trip north is filled with amazing cafes, shops, and scenery.
-Cannot wait to try some of the more "sexy" suites.
-Europe, and many places outside of the US, are great for basic cable real adult action late at night, but I have never seen anything like whatever channels the Seven Hotel offered. Hooray for sleepy time!

Majestic Villa Hotel - Jun 2014

This is one of those prime examples of “grand” European hotels. They are great for certain people, just not me. One of the things I always notice (read hate) about these places is that I always have to sit down to check in. Listen, you know what I want before I arrived. Here is my credit card and here is my ID. What else are we supposed to be talking about? I am all for chit chat, and being polite, and courtesy, but jesus, don’t these hotels realize that there is literally only one thing every single person who enters their hotel wants to do is IMMEDIATELY go the room. Go to the room is the answer. Let’s sit down and catch up later.

Anyway, nice property. Lobby is old school pretty and there is a bar/restaurant.

Location is a few confusing blocks from the Arc, but we figured it out in no time. This area pretty much dies at night, and doesn’t have much more going on during the day. Being next to the Arc and at the beginning of the Champs E’llyses was pretty cool though...the first day. Paris is big, so depending on where you go out, it could always take a while to get back, but in this location, I felt like everywhere we hung out was really far away and thus a drag to go back to the hotel.

They did offer a mini bar with free non alcoholic items. The also had 24 hour room service and on demand movies (but no adult I think). And they had a unisex hamam (where we couldn’t figure out the shower) along with 2 saunas (one which didn’t seem to work) but it was still a cool and semi private area. The hotel pool is part of the spa area and is actually pretty cool, but there was a kid there while we were trying to chill so it got a little ruined.

Notes

-For the price, I didn't necessarily get what I wanted here, but this is a good hotel.