Three questions decide it. How far will you swim: Molitor's pools are 46 and 33 metres, the Lutetia's and Shangri-La's 17, and Le Bristol's is small, for a swim with the rooftops in view. When: Le Bristol opens its pool at 6.30am, the Crillon at 9am. With whom: Molitor, the Lutetia, the Crillon and Shangri-La share the water with club members or spa visitors. Choose Molitor to swim, the Lutetia or the Crillon to pair the spa with Paris on foot.
Hôtel Molitor Paris is the one hotel of the ten built around water. The 1929 baths at Auteuil were almost entirely demolished in 2012 and rebuilt as a close copy, so you swim in a heated 46-metre outdoor pool framed by tiers of blue cabin doors, or in a 33-metre indoor pool under glass, kept at 28°C. Swimming is included in the room, and access to at least one of the two is guaranteed all year. The Spa by Clarins has 13 treatment rooms, two of them doubles, a 50 m² private spa suite and hammams, and treatments for children too.
Members of the Molitor Club share the pools, with classes from 7am to 8.30pm, and so do spa-day guests. Auteuil is 7 km from Notre-Dame and the Métro a ten-minute walk, so let the pools set the days and ride in for the sights.
The room to book
Deluxe Room
about 26 m²€412 a night
The first category sold with a guaranteed view of the outdoor pool and its blue cabin doors, so the water stays in sight between swims and treatments.
Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris pairs a full spa with the Left Bank on foot. Below ground, the 700 m² spa holds a 17-metre pool, a hydrotherapy pool, a hammam and a sauna, with six treatment rooms, one of them a double, and a gym of over 100 m². The pool is open from 7am to 10pm and treatments run from 10am to 8pm, so a swim fits before breakfast or after dinner.
The water is shared with gym members and with visitors booked on the spa's two-hour rituals, and children swim with an adult in two daily sessions, until noon and from 2pm to 7pm. Upstairs, the Left Bank's only Palace puts Le Bon Marché four minutes away and the Jardin du Luxembourg ten: a morning in the pool and an afternoon on foot fit the same day.
The room to book
Deluxe Room
about 40 m²€1,632 a night
Seven square metres more than the entry room, on the inner courtyard rather than the busy Raspail junction, with the Carrara marble bathroom of the balcony rooms: space to unwind between spa visits.
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel keeps its spa beneath the Cour Gabriel. Sense, A Rosewood Spa centres on a lap pool under a long glass roof, its walls in Peter Lane's blue ceramics and its floor set with 17,600 pieces of gold mosaic, with a sauna, a steam room, experience showers and a Himalayan salt wall alongside. Hotel guests use the pool and the relaxation area freely, every day from 9am to 9pm, and share them with spa members and guests on day packages. Treatments are booked on top, and the fitness studio is open 24 hours.
The spa evening can carry on upstairs: every room and standard suite has a marble bathroom with a soaking tub. Outside, the Tuileries gate on the square is five minutes away, so the spa sits at the end of days spent on foot in the centre.
The room to book
Grand Premier Room
about 42 m²€2,655 a night
Ten square metres more than the entry room, facing a courtyard or Rue Boissy d'Anglas, with the marble bathroom and soaking tub for a long bath after the pool.
At Le Bristol Paris the pool is on the sixth floor, designed by the naval architect Cäsar Pinnau as the teak deck of a 1920s yacht. The chlorine-free water is held at 28°C, and the windows and sun terrace face north across the rooftops to Saint-Augustin's dome and Montmartre. Hotel guests can swim from 6.30am to 10.30pm. The pool is small, so come for a swim and the view rather than for lengths.
Spa Le Bristol by La Mer has eight treatment rooms, a couples suite among them, open from 9am to 9pm, with Bonpoint treatments for children, and the 117 m² gym keeps the pool's hours. Every room has a marble bathroom with a bath, a separate shower and twin basins, and the 1,200 m² garden, where Epicure has its terrace, is the other place to slow down.
The room to book
Deluxe Room with balcony
about 45 m²€2,397 a night
About 45 m² with a private balcony over the garden rather than the courtyard or the street, and a marble bathroom with a bath and a separate shower.
Shangri-La Paris keeps its spa in the former stables of Prince Roland Bonaparte's house: Chi, The Spa, built around a 17-metre pool under daylight, with a 94 m² planted terrace. Swimming is included in the stay. The pool is open to hotel guests and the spa's club members from 7am to 9pm, and non-residents can buy a day's access. The spa itself opens from 9am to 9pm for treatments, facials and massages, and there is a fitness room.
It closes this list because the hotel is booked first for something else: the Eiffel Tower, about 600 metres across the Seine. Pair the pool with a room named Eiffel and the spa stay has a view to match, with the tower's entrance a 13-minute walk over the Pont d'Iéna.
The room to book
Eiffel View Room
about 45 m²€3,007 a night
The first category sold on the tower, seen at an angle through tall French windows: the view that sets this spa stay apart. Ask for a high floor.
Le Grand Mazarin keeps an 8-metre mosaic pool, a jacuzzi and a hammam for hotel guests, under a vault painted by Jacques Merle, with one treatment room for massages and facials: a swim and a soak in the Marais.
Le Pavillon de la Reine, behind the Place des Vosges, has no pool, but its 250 m² Spa de la Reine has two treatment rooms, and guests use its hammam, jacuzzi and gym free from 7am to 9pm.
Le Bristol Paris opens its sixth-floor pool to hotel guests from 6.30am to 10.30pm. Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris runs its pool from 7am to 10pm, and Shangri-La Paris from 7am to 9pm for hotel guests and club members. Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel opens its pool from 9am to 9pm every day, with a fitness studio open around the clock. At Hôtel Molitor Paris, ask the front desk for the day's pool times and the club's class timetable; classes run from 7am to 8.30pm.
Which Paris spa hotels welcome children?
Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris lets children swim with an adult in two daily sessions, until noon and from 2pm to 7pm. Le Bristol Paris runs Bonpoint treatments for children in its La Mer spa and can arrange babysitting, and Hôtel Molitor Paris offers children's treatments in its Spa by Clarins. At Le Pavillon de la Reine, under-16s use the hammam and jacuzzi with an adult. Plan family swims around the set sessions and book children's treatments with your own.
How far is Hôtel Molitor Paris from central Paris?
Hôtel Molitor Paris is at Auteuil, at the south-western edge of the 16th, 7 km from Notre-Dame. Michel-Ange-Molitor station, on lines 9 and 10, is a ten-minute walk: line 9 reaches Trocadéro in six stops and line 10 reaches Odéon, in Saint-Germain, in twelve. By car the Eiffel Tower is about 11 minutes off-peak and the Louvre about 16. Roland-Garros is six minutes on foot and the Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil faces the hotel. Give each day one part of Paris and come back to swim.
How did you choose these hotels?
Independently, through extensive research, trusted sources and first-hand visits. Hotels cannot pay to be included, and every one of the ten has to exist for a different reason.
The pool one
