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A hotel review and 3-minute-radius guide by Gary Lee Kraut

I crossed the city by bike one late afternoon and checked into the Hotel Aviatic so as to test the hotel and investigate the surrounding neighborhood. Within 10 minutes I sensed that the Aviatic could hold its head high in its category, that of the 3-star Left Bank charmer. First there was the warmth of the welcome. Then the fact that the receptionist took my unusual request for a safe place to keep my bike for the night seriously and immediately sought a solution (the kitchen, until the luggage storage room could be rearranged).

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A Night in the Normandy Hotel

This review is specifically written for travelers who would like to stay in a 4-star hotel in Paris but have a less stellar budget. It’s a review of a hotel that has seen better days but that still displays enough of its grandeur at an address that shouts “location, location, location” to warrant looking into when in the search for a central hotel at a 3-star price.

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A Night at Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche: Infidelity on Rue Monsieur le Prince

All travel carries scent of infidelity. The eye wanders, the senses get curious, the smile invites foreign conversations, and at night you grope your way to the bathroom as though you might disturb a stranger. The wandering, the sensing, the inviting, and the groping are more pronounced when you travel alone. I know. I’ve been there. I was unfaithful the night I slept at Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche.

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Saint-Germain-en-Laye By Day, Pavillon Henri IV By Night
Of the constellation of formerly royal towns that now stand for genteel living in the western suburbs of Paris, Versailles naturally grabs the lion’s share of attention due to its chateau. But Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Versailles’s predecessor (along with the Louvre) as official residence of the Court of France, is the more likeable town for an afternoon stroll-about.
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The Luxury Drug: High Tea at the George V with JP
It’s ten after six in the afternoon and the piano player has just left the gallery lounge at the Four Seasons George V, signaling the end of tea time in one of Paris’s leading palace hotels.
 
An attendant waiter, whose smooth, beatific smile I have become accustomed to while sitting here for the past hour and a half, offers to pour me more tea.
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