The Hôtel de L'Esperance

Lauren and Max stayed at the Hôtel de L'Esperance back in April of last year, and Lauren was were pleased with it and pleased to be returning. We arrived a little after noon, having walked a little over two miles through the hardest rain we encountered on the entire trip. It stopped when we reached the hotel. The sun came out, and we saw a glorious finish to the 2007 Tour de France after walking through the Sunday markets on Rue Mouffetard, around Notre Dame, ate quiche while sitting on steps by the Seine and wandered through the courtyards of the Louvre.

The hotel was situated in its own distinct quarter in which we found an internet cafe and a couple of fine restaurants, one an Italian, the other traditional French which clearly catered to a roster of regulars from the neighborhood. It was easy to walk to the center of the city, down along the Left Bank, or to catch the metro from any one of several stations.

It was the first place I ever stayed where you really do leave your key at the desk when you go out. The view out the fourth floor window was of other rooftops over which rose the sun in the morning and over which, in the wee hours of our last day in Paris, I lay awake, watch Mars rise in the east, and spotted a meteor streaking across the window’s frame of the Paris sky.