Affordable arrondissements in Paris
 

I'll be in Paris for a week this Spring, and I'm looking to settle down and get a short feel for Paris life. This will be my second trip; I don't need to be in the Center. I'd like a neighborhood with pleasant walks or bike rides, affordable French places to eat, and the neighborhood fromageries and boulangeries and patisseries that I hear so much about!

The key word here: affordable.

I have leads on rooms under 50 euro in the following areas:

1re Arr., near Metro 1/4 - Châtelet
4th Arr., near Metro 1 - Hotel de Ville / Marais
9th Arr., near Metro 8/9 - Grands Boulevards
10th Arr., near Gare du Nord (I know this area already)
12th Arr., near Metro 8 - Michel Bizot
8th/17th Arr., near Metro 2/13 - Place de Clichy
17th Arr., near Metro 13 - Brochant
18th Arr., near Metro 2 - Blanche Montmarte

Any suggestions?

I like the 7th, Rue Cler.

I would look in your first 3 listed areas and also in the 5th Arrondisement. These areas are closer to the center and would allow you to walk many of the places you want to go.

There is nothing affordable in the 7th, IME. The same could be said about 1st and the 4th. I do not know the area, but hear good things, affordability wise, about the 18th; lots of ethnic enclaves.

The 9th, 10th and 18th arrondissements are the most affordable on your list. The 9th and 10th are the two arrondissements with the greatest number of hotels in Paris and are very much preferred by European tourists.

I think you should follow Kerouac's suggestions...he lives there!

The outer arrondissements will have less expensive rooms but the cost in cafes, patisseries, etc...will be less than those right in central Paris (which are also busy tourist areas=higher prices for most things). If you can stay close to a Metro station or on a good bus route, you will have an easy time of getting everywhere you want to go.