Where to stay in Paris: eight areas, and our hotels in each

The 1st runs from the Tuileries and the Louvre along the Seine to Les Halles, where the Forum des Halles sits under its glass Canopée beside Saint-Eustache, the Bourse de Commerce and the 4-hectare Jardin Nelson-Mandela. From the Place du Palais-Royal, the Louvre Pyramid is 4 minutes on foot, the Musée d'Orsay 17 over the river, Notre-Dame 23 and the Palais Garnier 15.

It is also where the lines meet. Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre has Métro lines 1 and 7, Pyramides adds line 14, direct to Orly in under half an hour, and Châtelet-Les Halles has the RER A, B and D: the B and D run direct from Gare du Nord, the B from Charles de Gaulle. By taxi, Madame Rêve is about 9 minutes from Gare du Nord and 39 from Charles de Gaulle, at the flat €56 Right Bank fare.

The cost is the crowd: in 2016 the Ville de Paris put Les Halles at 750,000 passengers a day. Hôtel Madame Rêve fills the upper floors of the 1888 Louvre post office on Rue du Louvre, 12 minutes from the Pyramid: 83 rooms, a rooftop garden bar open all year and a Superior from about €595 a night in February. It suits a first or second trip on foot; its garden-view rooms face the quieter courtyard.

The Marais runs through the 3rd and 4th to the Place des Vosges, built from 1605 to 1612 under Henri IV and Louis XIII: 36 brick-and-stone pavilions over arcades, with restaurants under them. It is an international tourist zone, so shops may open on Sundays, when the city also closes streets in the Marais to cars from 10am; since November 2024 the 1st to the 4th have been closed to through traffic.

From Saint-Paul station, on line 1 to the Louvre, the Place des Vosges is 8 minutes on foot, the Musée Picasso 9 and Notre-Dame 16; Bréguet-Sabin and Bastille are on line 5, direct from Gare du Nord. By taxi, Gare du Nord is 12 minutes from Le Grand Mazarin and 11 from the Pavillon, Charles de Gaulle 40 and 38, Orly 26 and 25.

The cost is late nights and small rooms. Le Grand Mazarin, by the Hôtel de Ville, keeps its bar open until 2am, its street side hears the Marais at weekends and its Classic room is 20 m²; Martin Brudnizki's rooms and an 8-metre pool suit design lovers, from about €525 in February. Le Pavillon de la Reine sits behind the square's arcades across its own courtyard garden, with a one-star dining room, from about €550: the one for a couple.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés takes its name from its church, founded as a Benedictine abbey and one of the oldest in Paris; Les Deux Magots is on its square and the Café de Flore a few doors along. Rennes-Saint-Sulpice and Saint-Germain are international tourist zones, so shops may open on Sundays, and the Bon Marché department store is 12 minutes south-west.

From the Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Jardin du Luxembourg is 10 minutes on foot, the Louvre Pyramid 15 over the river, the Musée d'Orsay 16 and Notre-Dame 17. Saint-Germain-des-Prés station is on line 4, direct from Gare du Nord; Mabillon and Odéon add line 10, and Sèvres-Babylone lines 10 and 12. By taxi the Lutetia is about 21 minutes from Orly at the flat €36 Left Bank fare, 41 and €65 from Charles de Gaulle and 15 from Gare du Nord.

The cost is money and the boulevard: traffic on Boulevard Saint-Germain has grown since the centre across the river closed to through traffic, the Ville de Paris reports. Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, the Left Bank's only Palace, faces Le Bon Marché on Boulevard Raspail, 10 minutes from the square, with a 17-metre pool and rooms from about €1,470 in February. It suits a first trip that wants the Left Bank on foot and a pool to come back to.

The 5th climbs from the Seine opposite Notre-Dame past the Musée de Cluny and the Sorbonne to the Panthéon, and on to Rue Mouffetard, which the city closes to cars every Sunday, and the Jardin des Plantes. From the Fontaine Saint-Michel, Notre-Dame is 6 minutes on foot, the Musée de Cluny 6, the Jardin du Luxembourg 11, the Panthéon 14 and the Louvre Pyramid 18 over the river.

The RER B runs underneath, at Saint-Michel Notre-Dame and Luxembourg, direct to Gare du Nord and Charles de Gaulle, and the RER C at Saint-Michel follows the river to the Musée d'Orsay and Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel. Line 4 at Saint-Michel also runs direct to Gare du Nord, and line 10 crosses the quarter at Cluny-La Sorbonne and Maubert-Mutualité. By taxi, Gare du Nord is about 12 minutes, Orly 23 at the €36 Left Bank fare and Charles de Gaulle 42 at €65.

None of our ten is in the Latin Quarter: on the Left Bank we chose the Lutetia in Saint-Germain, 19 minutes' walk from the fountain. The quarter suits a Left Bank stay built around Notre-Dame, the gardens and the RER B from the airport; the trade is the Right Bank, where the Marais and the 8th are a Métro ride or a long walk away.

The Place de la Concorde opens onto the Tuileries and the Seine, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré runs west past Hermès at No. 24 and the gates of the Élysée Palace, and Avenue Montaigne and the Champs-Élysées lie beyond. Champs-Élysées-Montaigne and Haussmann are international tourist zones, so the shops may open every Sunday, and the Champs-Élysées goes car-free on the first Sunday of the month.

From the Concorde Métro exit on Avenue Gabriel, the Musée de l'Orangerie is 8 minutes on foot, Hermès 4, Avenue Montaigne 19, the Louvre Pyramid 20 and the Musée d'Orsay 16 over the river. Concorde has lines 1, 8 and 12, Madeleine adds line 14, direct to Orly, and Miromesnil lines 9 and 13. By taxi, Gare du Nord is 10 minutes from the Crillon and 12 from Le Bristol, and Charles de Gaulle 36 from both.

The cost is money. Hôtel de Crillon, in the western corner of Gabriel's façade on the Concorde, from about €2,190 a night in February, suits a milestone, though only its signature suites face the square; Le Bristol, on the Faubourg, 12 minutes' walk away, from about €1,790, with a 1,200 m² garden, a sixth-floor pool and a welcome for children, is the one for a family. Both add the Palace city tax of €15.93 per adult per night.

Along Boulevard Poissonnière and Boulevard Montmartre are theatres, Le Grand Rex cinema and the covered Passage des Panoramas and Passage Jouffroy, with the department stores of Boulevard Haussmann to the west and Rue Montorgueil to the south. From Grands Boulevards station, the Passage des Panoramas is 3 minutes on foot, the Palais Garnier 13, the Galeries Lafayette 12, Rue Montorgueil 12 and the Louvre Pyramid 21.

Grands Boulevards and Bonne Nouvelle have lines 8 and 9, and line 9 runs west to the Champs-Élysées and the Trocadéro. Gare du Nord is 21 minutes on foot, and by taxi Grands Boulevards Experimental is about 5 minutes from it and 35 from Charles de Gaulle.

The cost is the boulevard. It sits outside the limited-traffic zone that closes the 1st to the 4th to through traffic, and the Ville de Paris reports more traffic on Boulevards Poissonnière and Bonne-Nouvelle since the zone opened. Grands Boulevards Experimental is set back down a passage off Boulevard Poissonnière: 50 rooms of 13 to 32 m², a courtyard restaurant and a rooftop bar, from about €260 a night in February. It suits a couple who eat out and use the room to sleep, and the courtyard rooms are away from the traffic.

South Pigalle is the slope of the 9th below Place Pigalle, with Rue des Martyrs, which the city closes to cars at weekends; Montmartre is the hill above it in the 18th, an international tourist zone with Sunday shopping and car-free Sunday streets.

From Place Pigalle, the Place des Abbesses is 5 minutes' walk, uphill, the Moulin Rouge 7, the Musée de la Vie romantique 7, the Sacré-Cœur 11 and the Palais Garnier 21; the funicular up to the Sacré-Cœur takes a Métro ticket. Pigalle has lines 2 and 12, and the 12 runs up to Abbesses and direct to Madeleine and Concorde. Gare du Nord is 19 minutes on foot, and by taxi Le Pigalle is about 5 minutes from it and 33 from Charles de Gaulle.

The cost is the night. Le Pigalle is on Rue Frochot, a short street of late bars, 2 minutes from the square: 40 rooms of 12 to 35 m², with a glimpse of the Sacré-Cœur's dome from the top floor's street side, over a café, bar and restaurant with a record library that stays open until 2am from Thursday to Saturday. Street-side rooms hear it at weekends, and the courtyard side is quieter. From about €285 a night in February, it suits a second visit, for the neighbourhood rather than the monuments.

The 16th is the residential west, two trips in one, linked by Métro line 9. At the north, the Trocadéro gardens run down from the Palais de Chaillot to the Seine, opposite the Eiffel Tower. From the Parvis des Droits de l'Homme, the tower's entrance is 12 minutes on foot across the river and the Musée Guimet 9. Trocadéro has lines 6 and 9. Shangri-La, two minutes from Iéna and 14 from Gare du Nord by taxi, is booked for the tower, at an angle from the rooms named Eiffel and whole from the upper terraces: an Eiffel View Room cost about €3,005 on a February night, against €1,730 for a Superior without it.

Auteuil, at the south-western edge, 7 km from Notre-Dame, is stadiums and gardens: Roland-Garros, the Parc des Princes, whose match nights fill the streets, and the free Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil. Hôtel Molitor is built around the 1929 Molitor baths, rebuilt as a close copy after their demolition in 2012, with a heated 46-metre outdoor pool and a 33-metre indoor one, from about €380; Michel-Ange-Molitor, on lines 9 and 10, is ten minutes' walk, and the Louvre 16 minutes by car. By taxi, Charles de Gaulle is 39 minutes from Shangri-La and 41 from Molitor, and Orly is nearer from both.