This cute little hotel has been in the same family for 100 years and Madame Charrade, should you be lucky enough to meet her, is the gentlest hotelier you could hope to meet (her staff are less personal). More living room than lobby is the inviting sitting area off the new breakfast room, with fireplace, gleaming wood panelling and bookshelves. From the higher floors, the view across the St Germain marketplace to the towers of St Sulpice church is super. These rooms at the top have loads of character with their sloping ceilings, though little space and thin walls, and access is by narrow stairwell or even narrower lift! Back rooms have no view, of course, except over the pretty planting at the bottom of one of the lightwells (the hotel occupies two connecting buildings), but peace is guaranteed. Madame’s decorative style is southern cottage: small spriggy or floral prints, harmonious fabrics, good colour combinations – midnight-blue and ivory, Provençal red and orange – and crisp, white piqué bedcovers; bathrooms are often tiled in colourful mosaic. A hotel of good value – from which reaching all the sights is a breeze.
