111op

Does anyone know Hotel De Lille Pelican on 8 rue du Pelican?

I'm tempted to book this one as Tiquetonne is closed in August, so I need to wait a couple of days before calling them. However DLP will charge me one night in the event of a cancelation. There're no comments on tripadvisor and a search here turned up a few posts but no specific comments.

Thanks!

Christina

Don't you think that's a funny name?

no, I don't, but it is mentioned in the super-budget list of hotels by the guy who does www.jack-travel.com and I respect his opinion. I think he culls the best of a category, anyway. If you haven't seen his pages, you should:

http://www.jack-travel.com/Paris/Par...get_Hotels.htm

111op

Thanks Christina -- I think that ealing_calling referred me to that list in response to my other thread that you also responded to.

What's so funny about the name though? I'm feeling dense.

By the name, the woman who answered the phone today had a nice sense of humor -- see my posting here:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...2&tid=34521943

I guess I'll try to call them tomorrow. Maybe the room will be gone by then. I'm just amazed that Labor Day weekend is this difficult to book.

111op

Actually now that I've looked at the list again, the Marais ones sound really nice. I should find out more about them. I just can't decide if I want to be that far east.

Christina

I just think it's funny for a street or hotel to be named pelican, at least in Paris, as I don't think there are a lot of pelicans around the Louvre.

yeah, I know what you mean, I think there are more budget choices in that area.

111op

Who knows? Maybe for a historical reason.

I did actually take photos of a pelican when I was in Mykonos. Wasn't quite expecting to see a real one.

Christina

it's funny how one thing leads you to another. I read something about the history of this street name in a French book by Alfred Fierro about the HIstory of the Names of Parisian Streets -- and it originally had a name that sounded sort of like Pelican but was rather x-rated so I won't post it. That was around 1300, and later in 1792 the citizens thought it should be changed to be more socially acceptable (this book says they got revolutionary "pudeur" or modesty) so they made it "pelican" because it sounded somewhat like the other words. But it isn't named after the bird at all.

111op

That's very interesting. I think that a lot of the street names evolved historically, presumably -- I guess someone has obviously found this to be the case too and written a book about it.

I still haven't called the hotel again -- I'm definitely somewhat of a procrastinator.

111op

What's the French title, by the way? I looked him up on amazon.fr and he's written a number of books. He worked as a conservator at the Bibliotheque Nationale or something like that, I think.

Christina

This is a citation of the book which sounds fairly interesting to me:

Alfred Fierro, "Histoire et mémoire du nom des rues de Paris" (Parigramme, 1999, 430 p.)

I found a French literature web site that gives a paragraph from it in its archives, and it happens to be the paragraph about rue de Pelican -- if you can read French, it's about halfway down this page:

http://www.histoires-litteraires.org...h-grosplan.htm

111op

Thanks. It's a challenging paragraph to read given my level of French. I had to Google the offending phrase again to see what it means.

I don't think that the book came up in amazon.fr -- could be OOP.

111op

Correction -- amazon.fr does list it and you get to see the book jacket but claims it's not available, so presumably OOP.

111op

Just thought that I'd add to this since I never reported back on it on this thread, in case someone searches for this in the future.

Stayed here in Sept. 04 for one night. Superb location, one or two blocks away from Palais-Royal stop (Line 1). Key for front door for late-night entry.

Double at 56 euros. No soap, and I didn't ask for any, as I had some samples to use. Furnishings a bit tired, and my room had no view to speak.

When I checked in, the guy who checked me in said that a tour group from Taiwan had stayed there for an entire week the previous week.

For the same price level, I prefer the Tiquetonne.