There's a Small Hotel

Where: 97 rue Lauriston, Paris, France, 75016

[Publisher's Note: Can everyone give a big HotelChatter welcome Broocie13? Wassup Broocie? She will, hopefully, be joining us regular to break down this hotel scene we are all so involved with. To start, she is writing up a couple of her most recent stays. Enjoy.]

There's a lovely standard by Rodgers and Hart called "There's a Small Hotel" and everyone from Chet Baker to Frank Sinatra has crooned it. It goes something like this:

Complete for us to share together

At the Waldorf Trocadero in Paris's 16th arrondissement, no need for a wishing well or bridal suite. With one window opening out to the view of the Eiffel Tower (but really, where in Paris do you not see the Eiffel? Consider it the prettiest picture you could ever frame on a wall) and another into the courtyard of a Parisian apartment, it's like being caught in the middle of a lovely French life - la vie en rose, they murmur knowingly in this city. The roomy, steamy shower makes you want to forgive the boutique miniscule of European hotels.

And then, the petit dejeuner, the breakfast! A three-tier platter of breads from croissants to demi-baguettes is the centerpiece of a hearty display featuring cheese, hams, sausages, eggs and home-made yogurt, the only reason to get out of bed (of course there are other considerations, such as the Louvre, the Latin Quarter and Montmarte, but who thinks farther than four flights of stairs while on vacation?). With the International Herald Tribune unfolded in one corner of the table, you tuck in amidst the swirls of the café au lait and then you understand, this may be why F. Scott Fitzgerald never wanted to leave.

Because you're in Paris, stroll over cobblestones and across arrondissements. The Waldorf Trocadero is a petit four's munch away from Champs Elysees and the Eiffel Tower and because it's hard to stop walking when everything around you is so pretty, you'll run into Saint Germain and the Louvre sooner or later. While the Metro is perhaps one of the most efficient subway systems in the world, traipse the hour or so walk to Montmarte and Ile de France, if only for yet another excuse to stop by a sidewalk café for a crepe and a glass of burgundy.

When you get back to your room, sit by your open window as moonlight passes through and you may hear the gay accordion playing from the Palais des Jardins Chaillot du Trocadero. At that moment, you may declare to yourself (quietly, so as not to disturb the chanson) that there's no other place on earth that you'd rather be.

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