Paris for the Long Term: Which Neighbourhood to Choose for a Long Visit

A short visit to Paris is built around the sights. A long one is built around the mornings: where you drink your coffee, where you go for bread, which garden the children play in, how quiet the street is in the evening. That is why, for a long stay, we advise choosing the neighbourhood first and only then the apartment.

ACT 3 chooses its addresses across Paris, one by one. Below are three neighbourhoods at the very centre of the city, described honestly and without promotional superlatives.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés: the Left Bank as home

The 6th lies between the Seine and the Luxembourg garden. Around the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés are the cafés where Sartre and Beauvoir wrote, publishing houses, galleries and bookshops. Around the church of Saint-Sulpice, the streets are quieter and life moves at a gentler pace.

For a long visit, the main thing here is the Luxembourg garden. A morning walk along the chestnut alleys, a book on a green chair, the pond where children sail their little boats. It is the neighbourhood's garden, and after a few days it becomes yours.

The Upper Marais: museums around the corner

The 3rd is a district of seventeenth-century mansions turned museums: the Musée Picasso in the Hôtel Salé, the Musée Carnavalet, which tells the history of Paris, and the Musée des Arts et Métiers. Between them are galleries, workshops and designer shops. At lunchtime, the neighbourhood gathers at the Marché des Enfants Rouges, the oldest covered market in Paris.

The 2nd: the centre on a human scale

The smallest arrondissement in Paris turns out to be one of the most convenient to live in. It stretches from the Palais-Royal gardens to the Bourse and the Opéra quarter. Covered passages, the market on rue Montorgueil, the Bibliothèque nationale on rue de Richelieu. Everything is close, everything on foot.

What matters when you stay a long time

• · Space. Two to four bedrooms, up to eight guests depending on the apartment.
• · Separate bedrooms and bathrooms. Many of our apartments have as many bathrooms as bedrooms, and the morning stops being a queue.
• · A real kitchen. Every apartment has an equipped kitchen: the market in the morning, dinner at home in the evening.
• · Air conditioning. In all our apartments, which matters more in summer than you might think.
• · A single point of contact. Before, during and after your stay, you deal with the same team. The concierge works seven days a week, and the team can be reached at any time.

If you are planning a visit longer than usual, write to us: a discount is possible for long stays, and the invoice can be issued to your company.

How to choose

If you want gardens, books and calm, Saint-Germain-des-Prés. If museums and galleries, the Upper Marais. If the centre and the ability to do everything on foot, the 2nd. An intimate relationship with Paris, one neighbourhood at a time.

See the collection and our neighbourhood guides, for example the one on the Marais. For families, there is a dedicated page on family apartments. When you book direct, cancellation is free more than 30 days before arrival.

The ACT 3 Team