Paris for Two: Three Neighbourhoods for a Romantic Stay

Paris needs no help with romance. It only needs room: mornings that start late, walks without a goal, a dinner that lingers, the walk home under the street lamps. The neighbourhood you sleep in decides almost all of it. Here are three neighbourhoods in the heart of Paris that lend themselves to it particularly well.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Left Bank of books

This is the Paris people picture before they come, and it keeps its promises. Around the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés: the cafés where Sartre and Beauvoir wrote, the publishers, the galleries, the bookshops. Close by, the Luxembourg garden: you read on the green chairs, walk around the pond, pause at the Medici fountain.

The Seine is not far. In the evening, follow it to the bridges, then come back through the small streets, past the darkened shop windows.

The Upper Marais, courtyards and galleries

The Marais is more secret than it looks. Behind the carriage doors, cobbled courtyards; behind the façades, mansions turned museums. The Musée Picasso, the Musée Carnavalet and the contemporary galleries of the Upper Marais set the pace of the afternoons. The Place des Vosges, under its arcades, suits the end of the day.

In the evening, the quarter comes alive without growing loud. You dine, have a last drink, and walk home through streets already quiet.

The 2nd, the passages and the Opéra

The 2nd is the least expected of the three, and perhaps the most romantic. You walk under glass roofs: the Galerie Vivienne and its mosaic, the Passage des Panoramas and its small tables. The gardens of the Palais-Royal are close by, quiet even in mid-afternoon.

And then there is the Opéra. You walk there for an evening of ballet or opera, and come home through a quarter gone almost silent.

Our apartments are chosen one by one in the heart of Paris, and our neighbourhood guides introduce each of our addresses.

What you visit, where you live

Montmartre, its stairways and Sacré-Cœur in the early morning; the Eiffel Tower, from the Trocadéro or from a boat on the Seine at night: these are beautiful moments, and they are best lived as visits. To sleep, we prefer a neighbourhood that feels like home, and from which everything can be left on foot.

An apartment rather than a room

For two, an apartment changes the rhythm of the stay. A living room for doing nothing, a kitchen for a breakfast that stretches on, a door you close on the city. Our apartments are air-conditioned, have an equipped kitchen, often far more space than two people need, and are run like a hotel: premium linen, a personal welcome, a dedicated concierge seven days a week.

The concierge prepares what needs preparing: a table for the first evening, an airport transfer, a last-minute request. To go further, read our piece on a honeymoon in Paris, or see our page on a romantic stay in Paris.

The ACT 3 Team