Le New Hôtel

WEDNESDAY
Hobble over to Le New Hôtel. It's just a few steps from Paris's main railway station so it's not going to be a total champagne lollypop, but it does win the gold trophy for Cream of the Crap in the station-hotels category.

"New" means 1850, but I guess that is fairly new compared to some of the other old shacks you can get round here. To be fair, it is fairly new inside, with free Wi-Fi so you can email your mum, all the other knobs and whistles and creature comforts, eggs and bacon in a vaulted stone cellar in the morning and a reasonable bill when you check out.

Best bit: it smells good. Most of the hotels round here smell a bit like your younger brother's bathroom after a night on the town and - if you're lucky - a liberal spray of jasmine air freshener.

THURSDAY
Seeing the sights while staying at the Hôtel Louvre Bons Enfants . You chose it because their favourite colour's red (like yours), but it turns out to be a good choice - clean and comfy, free Wi-Fi, and you can even practise your Portuguese with the friendly quadruple-lingual staff. And it's in sightseeing city, right next to the Louvre. With all that in its favour, you can put up with the odd tacky angel and fake chandelier.

FRIDAY
Friday morning and you're pocket's hurting after a triple whammy of sightseeing, souvenirs and wallet-wrenching refreshments. And goddamit, you just want a cheap night on the town, a kebab on the way back, and a clean bed to crash in and sleep till midday.

You've heard Montmartre's full of good-looking women and happenin' nightclubs, which sounds perfect. Actually it's full of scary pimps, ugly prostitutes and broken neon lights, but you don't know that, so you decide to head there anyway.

Jump in a four-wheel-drive taxi and climb up through the narrow cobbled streets of Montmartre to The Village. It looks a bit posh with its old wood beams but it's cheap as chips and has doubles (if you think you're going to get lucky), triples (if you think you're going to get luckier) and dorms (don't go there).

A terrace with a nice view for watching the stars and a kitchen so when you miss the free breakfast in the morning you can at least make a cup of coffee. Just the ticket.

SATURDAY
Saturday afternoon - you've just woken up and now it's time to start thinking about going out again. But this time you want to be with young attractive French trendies, not groups of beered-up English lads on stag weekends or half-naked prostitutes imported from god knows where.

You want cheap (that nightclub really hit you with it's post happy-hour double-price drinks) but you want a bit more style.

No problem. Jump in a canoe and paddle down the canal to Le Quartier République, Le Marais in rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud. The street's one of the main drags in the edgy Oberkampf area, still comfortably bohemian and affordable but packed with students and other young alternatives out for live music, cheap drinks and a good time.

The hotel's part of the excellent mini-chain of LGH hotels in Paris. Stylish, well-designed rooms, all the techno bells and whistles, and unpretentious, attractive staff. At an unpretentious, attractive price. What more could you ask for? A sauna - yep, got that too. Go for a sit and a sweat before hitting the town.

SUNDAY
Damn, your head hurts. Two nights running, and you're not as young as you once were (obviously). First time you've just really, really, really wanted a quiet Sunday lunch, a quiet stroll in a quiet park, a quiet room in a quiet hotel in a quiet street in a quiet part of town. Peace and quiet, dammit! (Oh! don't shout too loud!)

Take an electric taxi to Le Clos Médicis right near the Jardin du Luxembourg. It's a renovated posh old town house - wooden beams and fireplaces, a sunny patio for breakfast and exactly the kind of quietly affluent clientele you want at this time on a Sunday morning.

Send a couple of emails from your laptop, take a stroll round the Jardin du Luxembourg, and rest your throbbing head. It's Sunday, which in France means that absolutely everything that anyone might want to do is shut anyway.

Hôtel Fouquet's-Barrière

MONDAY
Monday morning and things are looking up. Your mum's just called (quietly) to tell you that long-lost Uncle Watson has died of typhoid in the tropics - isn't that sad - and has left you in his will his complete collection of rare butterflies, a lion skin from his safari days, and several hundred dollars. Of course you're sad about poor old long-lost Uncle Watson. But he'd want you to be happy, right? He'd want you to treat yourself.

Go for it. Hire a helicopter and land on the roof of the Four Seasons George V. Abseil down the edge Bond-style, hop down the street, and leap onto a balcony of the Hôtel Fouquet's-Barrière. Because even your inheritance from Uncle Watson won't pay for a night at the George V, the world's most expensive and possibly most overrated hotel.

The George V (pronounced 'George Sank' not 'George Vee') is entirely typical rhinoceros French luxury - gold chandeliers, gleaming white marble, shiny buttons and red cheeks on the bell-boys and hordes of Filipino maids. Every luxury hotel in the world worth its stars hires Filipino maids, except in the US, where they hire Mexicans. Georgie-boy has won all the top rhinoceros hotel awards you can shake a 10,000 dollar bill at (no joke - that's about the price of their top suite for the night). But unless you're a baby rhino, you'll want something a bit less fussy and a bit less frilly.

The Hôtel Fouquet's-Barrière is huge and fantastic, a recent renovation-baby of designer Jacques Garcia. Spotlessly clean (I guess they have Filipino maids too), simple and stylish, and with a gleaming spa and pool in the basement. Restaurants and bars galore, so you can make a toast to Uncle Watson.

And remember, it's just a short hop from the George V on the so-called 'Golden Triangle' of Paris's most expensive hotel streets. Only rich people and their attractive secretaries stay round here. Dress in dirty jeans, swear loudly in the foyer and burp after dinner - no-one will mind because they'll think you're just another famous rock star or top English footballer.

TUESDAY
Last day. You've jumped out of the window of the Fouquet's-Barrière without paying the bill so you've still got all of Uncle Watson's inheritance money to blow. Shopping it is, in Paris' trendiest young designer shops and bars around the Marais area. You need a trendy young design hotel to go with your new shoes (or rather shoe - you've still only got one leg).

Carefully put your stripy new hat at a jaunty angle and stroll into Hôtel Duo, one of the best and longest-standing design hotels in an area where they're popping up and falling down quicker than the frogs on that fairground thump-the-frog game.

Ignore the silly pink paper flowers in the windows and the random squares of pebbles - has to have a bit of that crap if it's to be a design hotel proper - and sink into a rug in the lounge so thick you lose your new trendy shoe in it. Square chairs (you know the sort, the uncomfortable ones) but the rooms are cosy and clean and there's a trendy bar for a trendy gin and tonic while you check your emails in the trendy lounge.

Top Tip: 7 days and 7 nights is about as long as many of Paris's hotels last. They're popping up and blowing down all over the city all of the time, so unless you're heading for the George V look for one that's lasted longer than a year if you want to be sure it's worth booking.

Top Tip II: You may notice an obsession with cleanliness threaded through this article. That's because, despite France's 6.8 million-strong bureaucracy, health and safety officers haven't managed to get round to inspecting Paris's hotels. "Clean" is often an added extra rather than a standard requirement. Check for bedbugs and hairy plugs before handing over your euros.

[Photo of Eiffel Tower: 41Dodge]