A sex shop with flashing lights a few doors along on one side, and tramps sleeping on the pavement outside the bureau de change next door the other side.
Our room had the most appalling smell of the most disgusting airfreshener ever invented; it had reached bearable limits after leaving the window open for 5/6 hours. We'd requested a double bed but had two singles: we didn't query it, mainly because we were so down. We just didn't want to risk getting an even worse room
The TV didn't work - I don't think it had even been tuned in
The sink plug didn't fit.
Wires hanging out of the suspended ceiling by the next door room. We think they were probably safe.
My wife was alarmed by the fire escape facilities - straight down the stairway in the middle of the building........
Legend has it the front rooms are noisy - ours was at the back, so can't comment
We could have paid extra for breakfast, but didn't want to give the hotel the satisfaction of taking our money; we could have left our luggage there all day, till our Eurostar journey home, but paid for a luggage locker at the station rather than give the hotel the satisfaction of looking after our belongings.
On the plus side: Paris is Paris is Paris; the weather was good, and the hot water was straight from Vesuvius.
I've placed this in the "Romantic Travel" theme, because of why we were there, but it was hardly appropriate, in the circumstances. If any members say "don't be so picky", I say, "wait till you've been married for 40 years"
Probably the second worst hotel we've ever stayed in. Indeed, we only stayed as it had been paid for and it was too late to cancel - otherwise we'd have gone elsewhere, if we could have found a room. As it often the case, there's no guarantee that anywhere else would have been any better
