Like Tallyho, I'm a Victoria station fan and agree that anywhere you stay in Paris, you'll be close to a metro, plus some of the stations such as for the Louvre are nice looking. Packing light, one 24 inch and a back pack is the way to carry as much as you'll need.

I don't know if Judy is confused or not, but I have read a few times from people that want to stay near the RER B to be easy to get from the airport. I also would rather pay for a taxi and choose where I want to stay. Actually, in London, I like being near Paddington because of the Heathrow Express. However, I do agree with McBetsy et al. that the Air France bus is more convenient from the airport than the RER in some cases, so you could stay near one of their stops (probably Montparnasse, which is a train station). You have to walk a couple blocks from there to get to a nicer area for hotels, however, than from St-Michel, at least to my standards.

I don't think there was any act to make more than one train station, it's just logical. When you have so many trains and runs, you can't have them all leaving from one station and it wouldn't make sense to have a train going to NE France or Belgium leave from the Left Bank and have to cross railroad tracks over the Seine in downtown Paris. London has some of the same situation with the river, but I don't think all trains leave from Victoria, as I've taken trains that only left from Waterloo. I don't think it would even be desirable for any city of a really large size to have only one train station if they use trains a lot.

Thanks to all who have replied. Yes, I'm a bit confused, but for the most part it all makes sense to me. To Tallyhotravels: We stayed at Thistle Victoria--lucked into it when booking on an AA Vacations special in the spring. Had chosen a hotel a little less expensive, but when we realized that the train from Gatwick went right into Victoria Station, took the Thistle instead. As it was our first time of booking our own reservations, we were quite pleased with ourselves. Perhaps we'll be doing "April in Paris". Thanks again.

Try the AirFrance bus to gare de Lyon, then stay at the Best Western "L'Aurore" 2 short blocks away. Metro to centre ville is at the gare Lyon, and the train to Versailles is across the bridge at Gare D'Austerlitz. All very close and convenient.

Judy, I agree with you in regard to avoiding the hastle of changing trains in Paris with luggage.

If you look in the area around the Chatelet metro stop, you can find several nice hotels. Chatelet is probably the closest thing in Paris to what you are looking for. It links several metro lines and RER B which runs directly to CDG.

Last year, I stumbled across a place called Grand Hotel de Champagne which is about one or two blocks from Chatelet. It was a nice hotel, with typically small rooms but a very nice breakfast included;the staff were all friendly and very helpful. You might want to try that.

As for the Air France bus, it's not nearly as convenient as the RER.