Looking down the long, winding six flights of stairs leading from our room to the ground floor of the Hotel Amarys Simart is enough to give anyone vertigo. An ancient, Victorian-styled six-story hotel in the heart of the artist district Monmartre, only a few minute stroll from Sacre Coure basilica, the Hotel Amarys Simart is a beautiful accommodation with more style than comfort. It is located between two easily accessible Métro stops, near several convenience stores and a Champion supermarche, and within walking distance of Paris’ famed Red Light District and the Gare du Nord (North Station) train stop, which is your point of entry if you enter Paris from London via the EuroStar.
An inexpensive little spot off the beaten path, the hotel staff speak in broken English and fluent African-French, which can lead to misunderstandings where amenities such as a supposed “free” breakfast is concerned. We’d spent the first day wandering the streets of Paris on foot, and the next morning wandered down the six flights of steps (there’s no elevator in the hotel) tired, sun-burnt, and half-dead, ready to settle into a nice pastry and cup of coffee. We were sipping the last of our orange juice, rejuvenated and refreshed, ready to face the day, when the concierge called us over to the front desk and asked us if we were aware that breakfast had an additional charge.
“It’s included with our tour package,” I tried to explain in both English and my textbook-perfect French, but to little avail. He continued to insist we would have to pay 6€ for each breakfast, and considering it had taken the clerk the previous day 10 minutes to find our reservation, we decided not to argue and simply declined the offer of breakfast the next morning.
The rooms are also a bit less than expected. Our “double-bed suite” consisted of two twin beds pushed together, a small wardrobe, and a miniscule bathroom. And I mean miniscule. At the height of 5’3”, I could sit on the toilet and simultaneously wash my feet off in the shower across from it, my legs spanning the width of the space in front of a sink you cannot wash your face in due to a large glass shelf that sticks out over the sink at about chest level. Our room’s “draped balcony opening onto a scenic Paris view” consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows that did swing open like a door, only to show us the same windows of a house across the street, the “balcony” being a 6-inch space between the window ledge and small ironwork railing.
Still, all in all, it was a nice little hotel that, while lacking the amenities of larger hotels such as air-conditioning, telephone service, and an elevator, was quaint and cozy and provided us with a room for a ridiculously good rate (about $70/night).