France Travel Guide
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Hotel Le Seven Is Teasing Us With An April or June Opening Date
Who needs a suite when the normal rooms have levitating beds?
Messieurs, vous must be bloody kidding us. As recently as February, the folks behind the forthcoming Hotel Le Seven in Paris were saying that the place was on course for a March opening. Now its website is saying June (though it’s going to be a “grand opening”, in case that makes up for it). But – here’s the thing – the hotel’s Facebook page just gave fans the news that “there’s a possibility that we open in 45 days”. Which would make it the end of April. Would that be a soft opening, with the grand opening in June?
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Kate Moss Matches The Carpet at The Ritz Paris
It's been a while since we caught up with model Kate Moss and her hotel predilections but it looks like she's been shacking up at The Ritz in Paris for fashion week.
Paparazzi caught her strolling out of the hotel yesterday in a jeggings, a striped shirt and a cropped red cardigan that nearly matches the hotel's carpeting perfectly. Also note the hotel staffer watching over her departure anxiously.
The Ritz, located by the Place Vendôme, usually requires supermodel budgets to stay here as rooms start around $800 a night. However, sales on rooms do happen on such sites like Leading Hotels of the World which had the Ritz for less last fall. But we're guessing Ms. Moss doesn't do her own hotel budget hunting.
[Photo: Celebrity-Gossip.net]
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The New Villa & Hotel Majestic In Paris Looks Nice, But Out Of Our Budget
Le recession? Quel recession? To celebrate its opening last month, Paris’ new Villa and Hotel Majestic is having an opening offer of up to 40 per cent off rack rates.
Not bad, right? Right. Until you realize that even with the discount, rooms start at €300 ($408/£261), excluding breakfast and tax.
The 52-roomed hotel promises
stylish interiors combining classic French design with contemporary abstract artwork and furnishings resulting in an entirely modern aesthetic throughout the hotel.
Us, we’re not quite sold on the stripy/blotchy curtains in the bedrooms, and we can’t help thinking the decor looks a tad over-busy, though we’re definitely fans of wooden flooring (as long as it’s soundproofed), we love that the rooms look a lot brighter than a lot of dark Parisian places, and the lobby looks pretty stunning.
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This Man Won the Grammy of the Hotel Industry
So, Beyonce and Taylor Swift scooped up all the Grammys last night, but elsewhere in the world, another fierce competition was recently decided. We’re talking about the award for Receptionist of the Year.
This is no Office Space joke, but a very serious honor for the winner—which, this year, was Francois Lenne of Le Meurice in Paris. Lenne was granted the award at the Presidium of the International Association for Deputy Managers and Front Office Managers of Luxury Hotels, held in Madrid in January.
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From The Five Hotel in Paris Comes Hotel Le Seven
Last year, we stopped into a quaint little art/design hotel in Paris called The Five Hotel in the city's 5th Arrondissement. We loved the location, the hotel's individuality (no rooms are exactly alike), the seriously helpful service and the ceiling that lit up with different colored lights.
Which is why we are excited to hear that the Five Hotel's creators have another one in the works called Hotel Le Seven. However, the hotel is not in the 7th Arrondissement but rather in the Latin Quarter of the 5th, about a 10-minute walk from the Luxembourg gardens.
A tipster tipped us off to the hotel's new Facebook page where we learned that the Seven Hotel will have 28 "individually created guest rooms" but the coup de grace will be there seven suites, designed by seven different designers with different themes and interactive features. Here are the hotel's descriptions of a few of the seven suites:
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A Detox Hotel in Paris? Apparently so at The Hôtel Gabriel Paris Marais
Even if you binge on Cabernet Sauvignon and gorge too much on rich Camembert and Brie while in Paris, you won't have to abandon your resolution to get fit in '10. You can kick-start your plan at the Hôtel Gabriel Paris Marais, the City of Light's first detox hotel.
Don't worry, staying here won't be like an episode of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Instead, the 40-room hotel takes a less invasive method of purging the toxins in your life—whether they be from stress, bad diet, sleeplessness or lack of exercise. The hotel focuses on creating a relaxing zen den where you can get some shut-eye.
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Did You Know? Kanye West Designed the Bronzed Teddy Bears at Cheval Blanc
Bernard Arnault may have lost a whopping $9 billion in earnings last year, but the LVMH chairman and France's richest man remains firmly footed on his luxury mountaintop. You don't control brands like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior without knowing a thing or two about excess, from gaudily-labeled handbags to fine spirits and certainly high end hotels.
Arnault is the force behind Cheval Blanc (named for the pricey wine and also, a white horse), a ski resort located in France's Courchevel 1850. This is also where otorious luxury lover Kanye West (who once shaved the Fendi logo into the side of his head) has lent his passion for flashin' by designing bronze teddy bears for its decor.
And just like Kanye's swagger, modesty, and tastefulness, are tossed to the wayside at the hotel. In an interview with Business Week, hotel director Philippe Gourgaud was quoted as saying, "Luxury's a natural experience for us...We don't feel recession in our rooms." We'd like whatever brand of economic novacaine they're using.
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Hôtel de Sers Proves that Paris Can Get Cooler Than it Already Is
What's cooler than being cool? According to uber-hip website The Cool Hunter, Paris' Hôtel de Sers fits into said category. The City of Lights, with its ciggy-loving, blasé denizens, already ranks very high on the haute scale, so this hotel—which was a former mansion—fits right in.
The site gives kudos to its contemporary edge, saying, "[T]he current owners' expensive and extensive renovation retained the initial feel...of the original mansion, and managed to insert today's touches in a way that does not feel like a pretentious afterthought." A high class Parisian hotel that isn't pretentious? Quelle surprise!
Tags: HotelChatter 2009 Awards / Killer View / Hotel Bathtubs / → All Tags
Best Killer View: The Eiffel Tower, As Seen From a Tub at The Plaza Athenee
It's what you've been waiting all year for--The 2009 HotelChatter Awards! We'll be bringing you the best and worst of the year (and the decade) all day today and part of tomorrow. Agree or disagree with our picks? Air your thoughts in comments below.
BEST KILLER VIEW: THE PLAZA ATHENEE
We're suckers for Paris and if there's a hotel that has a view of the Eiffel Tower from a bathtub, yeah, that's gonna be an award-winner for us.
This is the view (sent to us by a tipster) from a suite at the Plaza Athenee where you can gaze at the Eiffel in all its grandeur, naked, from your suite's bathtub. The suite is actually the three-bedroom Terrace Suite that goes for about 8,000 Euros a night. You do get a Maserati to use your during your stay and the suite comes with a private hammam and a roof deck with panoramic views of the city.
And about that view, it's actually facing a window to a hallway with another window that has the killer view. There's a switch in the bathroom so you can frost the window for privacy or in case you're sick of looking at the Eiffel Tower. Um, how do you say, "AS IF!" in French?
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Snow Job: Hilton Arc de Triomphe's Outdoor Winter Bar
France and the U.S. might be in the midst of a cold trade war at the moment (can you believe how hard it’s become to get a smelly hunk of cheese or a nice bottle of wine for a decent price?), but the Hilton Arc de Triomphe is importing a couple of American customs this winter, including happy hour specials at their temporary outdoor “Snow Bar”.
Now through Christmas Day, the hotel is transforming its open-air “Andalusian Patio” into a winter-themed cocktail garden. The space is 8,600 square feet, making it one of the largest hotel gardens in Paris, with plenty of room for snow-covered Christmas trees and a chalet bar that will make you feel like you’ve swished your way to the slopes of St. Moritz.
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Paris Says Bonjour to a New InterContinental
Ah, gay Paree. If it’s not enticing us with slightly-less-heinous-than-usual rates, it’s calling us by opening a new hotel – the InterContinental Paris Avenue Marceau, near the Arc de Triomphe, which opened on Friday.
It’s pretty small (or should we say, petite) for an InterCon – just 55 rooms spread over three buildings around a courtyard. It’s pretty new, too – it used to be the Crowne Plaza Paris Champs Elysees, but even that only opened in 2008, so there’s not been much wear and tear to cover up here.
Decorwise, they’re aiming for a mix of “French classical and urban contemporary”, which probably explains the stripy carpets/cherub-spotted wallpaper combo. Weirdly, though, we kind of think it works. Meanwhile there’s Hermes in the bathroom and Missoni bedding (unstriped, luckily). The lobby’s another blast of messed up murals, modern chairs and frilly antique mirrors. We like.
The whole thing looks rather charmant, and rather unlike what we’d expect from an InterCon. Unfortunately, the prices are rather less so – from €270 ($386/£240) for a double, up to €910 for a suite. Paree, you better be worth it.
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A Castle and a Michelin-Rated Restaurant in the Loire Region
There are plenty of things we're lusting after this holiday: champagne, gifts, a much-needed break from the pain in the arse that is Christmas shopping, and as always, hotels. This week, our amour is directed at a château in France's Loire region, Domain Des Hauts de Loire.
Everything about the hotel looks—commence elementary French—très magnifique, from its natural surroundings, two hours outside of Paris' traffic-clogged streets, to the fact that you have a choice of rooms in either the resident or the castle portions of the property. How many Stateside hotels can claim to be castle-adjacent?
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