Journeywoman - A Female-friendly Paris Hotel

Phyllis Stoller is the President of the Women's Travel Club (womantrip@aol.com), an international, Florida-based company offering trips designed by and for women. She knows her stuff and was recently interviewed by Travel and Leisure Magazine on the subject of women's safety in hotels. We asked this savvy travel expert for her choice of a women-friendly hotel in Paris. Phyllis writes...

I recommend the Left Bank's Hotel Littre. It fits our company's parameters for the appropriate city hotel for women.

It is clean, comfortable and some of the rooms even have hairdryers in the wall. It is safe. The concierge desk is located near the front entrance and doors are locked after hours. The hotel has less than 100 rooms, only one set of stairs and one elevator, both visible from the front desk.

Breakfast tables are placed close enough to each other so that you can meet other travellers.

There are safes in most rooms and a front desk manager who really cares about his guests and also speaks excellent English.

The street has traffic with both stores and restaurants open at night (not noisy but plenty of street life which is reassuring in the evening). If you prefer to picnic as I do, there are plenty of places to buy wine, bread, cheese, etc.

Hotel Littre is beautifully located - one half block from public transportation which includes Montparnasse Train Station, Metro and buses.

There is room service now. Last year there wasn't any but the manager did bring rolls and tea to one of our clients who had the flu. Nice people!

For further info including current rates: Contact Hotel Littre, 9 rue Littre, Paris, 75006.
Tel: 011331- 45443868.

Journeywoman's Paris Pointers

Paris is divided into a numbered system of twenty districts or arrondisements. The higher the number alloted to the district, the farther that neighbourhood is from central Paris. Parisians will always give directions to a restaurant or a hotel by giving the number of the arrondisement first. i.e. Hotel Littre is in the 6th.

Paris is cut in two by the Seine which runs east and west across the city. The area north of the river is called the Right Bank. Here you'll find a great many of the tree-lined avenues, monuments, the very chic shops, hotels and restaurants. To the south is the Left Bank with its university buildings, cinemas, small shops, cafes and bookstores.

Know Before You Go Reading
Paris - The Virago Woman's Travel Guide
Frommer's Paris by Night
France - Eyewitness Travel Guides.
Their section on Paris is one of the best we've seen!

While In Paris - Read
Pariscope - a French weekly containing 8 full pages of English listings. A perfectly up-to-the -minute entertainment guide of "what's on" in the city.

Best Web Site The Paris Pages
http://www.paris.org (a fabulous site!)

Best Newsletter About Paris - Paris Notes is a well researched newsletter published in California. Back issues are $6.00 (US) and available from P.O. Box 3668, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266. Tel/Fax: 310-545-2735. (P.S. Their May 1966 issue contains a very helpful listing of the cheapest hotels in the city)