Hotel Les Chansonniers

If you’re looking for an affordable and comfortable stopover stay in Paris, make Hotel Les Chansonniers in Menilmontant your first choice.

I stayed two nights here as an American student abroad, and couldn’t have been happier with my experience. The staff was friendly and accommodating, happy to speak with me in English (thankfully, because my French wasn’t anything to brag about at the time), and it’s hard to beat €77 a night.

While it’s not in the city center, Hotel Les Chansonniers is located near a train stop about 40 minutes away from the Eiffel Tower (my point of reference, as a first time Paris-goer). But the area around the hotel is beautiful enough to capture your interest for days. It’s mere steps from the famous Pere-Lachaise cemetery, the final resting place of personalities like Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde. And a boisterous market sets up in the street outside twice a week, selling inexpensive goods from fashion to art.

In the evening, they host live music where patrons and locals are invited to sing and dance, and the owners pour wines and kirs at the bar. But breakfast the next morning is what sealed the deal. For €7.50, you get a platter of tea, coffee, chocolate, milk, bread, croissant and jam, and a seat in the cozy entrance room, where pictures of famous French songwriters grace the walls. A happy live-in tabby cat even found a comfortable spot in my lap while I drank my morning coffee.