Sweet dreams in Paris

By Susan Spano, Times Staff Writer
12:00 AM PST, March 12, 2006

QUINTESSENTIALLY LOVELY, Paris is the city of dreams. Take, for instance, 72 hours in a suite at the Crillon on the Place de la Concorde. That legendary hotel recently offered a three-night package, including airport transfers, breakfast, a tour of the premises and lunch at its vaunted Les Ambassadeurs restaurant. The price: $30,000.

At about the same time, six of the city's top hotels, including the Crillon, were fined for price-fixing.

If that doesn't take the stars out of your eyes about Paris, nothing will.

Far better, I think, is to pursue a different, but wholly achievable dream, set in a small, sweet, ivy-covered Paris budget hotel, from which you may see Notre-Dame Cathedral or the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower if you stand, craning your neck, at the window.

Degrés de Notre Dame

I feel like a rat, outing the Degrés de Notre Dame, one of the most appealing budget hotels I've ever seen in the City of Light. It's in the Latin Quarter just across the Seine from the eastern apse of the great medieval cathedral where Victor Hugo's hunchback rang the bells.

The Times reader who told me about the hotel said to keep it hush-hush. But I have loose lips. Besides, people should know about this charmer on one of the prettiest little squares in Paris, even if they have to plan way ahead to get a room there.

The Dégrees de Notre Dame is on the quiet east side of touristy St.-Michel, above a restaurant that features French and Moroccan cuisine, where the tables spread to the sidewalk in warm weather. It has 10 doubles on five floors starting at $132, all walk-ups with attached baths. The big room on the top floor, priced at $192, has a kitchenette and a view of the cathedral. But my favorite is the blue room, overlooking the street, which has a smashing tiled bath.

Breakfast is served in the cafe-bar downstairs, where guests check in and out because there's no lobby. Across the square is the perfect Latin Quarter restaurant, La Maison, with a beloved brindled mastiff as the mascot.

Degrés de Notre Dame, 10 Rue des Grands Degrés, 011-33-1-55-42-88-88; doubles from $132, including breakfast.

Hôtel de la Bretonnerie

ONE of the things I like most about the Hôtel de la Bretonnerie, in the delightful Marais, is its versatility. It has 29 rooms on five floors, but because of the 17th century building's state-protected antiquity, they were never renovated cookie-cutter style, so they retain their old, singular configurations. If you call and say you're a honeymooning couple, a single or a family of four, the management will give you accommodations suited to your needs.

A solo traveler or romantic couple would be well-pleased by one of the Bretonnerie's small but handsome canopy-bed doubles, at $138. A family would thrive in a junior suite, with two rooms separated by a bath, for $216. Chambers on upper floors have wood beams, and all are decorated with pretty fabrics and wallpaper.

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