Need hotel suggestions...
 

I am a female travelling solo to Paris in April for the first time and would like some suggestions for hotels in safe, centrally located areas to all the sights.

I recommend the St. Germain area of Paris. This is my favorite part of the city. Lots of wonderful boutique hotels, little cafes, and great shopping. We stayed at the Hotel Relais St. Sulpice and loved it. The rooms are nice (suggest a coutyard room) and the staff went out of their way to see that we were comfortable. If I traveled to Paris alone, I'd choose to stay at this hotel and neighborhood. Have a wonderful time!

You might like to check the Hotel de la Place du Louvre. It's right across from the Louvre on Rue des Pretres St-Germain l'Auxerrois, right next door to the Samaritaine department store, a block from the Seine at Pont Neuf, right across the river from St Germain, very close to two or three metro stations, etc. Super location, very helpful daytime staff; comfortable, nicely decorated, though small rooms with an in-room safe, nice breakfast (55 FF extra). Great view from the outer-facing rooms (5th floor rooms are two stories with steep stairs to bathroom). We had the inner-facing Kandinsky room which is L-shaped, allowing you to put your luggage out of the way. If I were travelling alone, I would be very comfortable staying there. However, the St Germain area is probably more lively at night.

You are probably not getting any advice because your question is too vague and broad (and your title is, also). People usually like to give recommendations and comments on here about Parisian hotels, so I think that's the problem. There are thousands of hotels in Paris and to recommend one, one needs some criteria; you have given no criteria to limit it. Without some input from you, any recommendation may or may not mean anything; you could just go to Fodors miniguide for Paris hotel choices and pick one, they give decent suggestions, if you have no criteria at all. Cost is the most important thing to know, then perhaps whether you like period, old, modern, etc, run-down budget family vs modern larger with services, etc. There are a lot of variants. I think it would be good if you did some preliminary work with a guidebook, even one online (Fodors, Frommers, Rough Guides, Timeout, etc), there is tons of info available for free, to find out the areas of Paris and which appeals to you, perhaps even picking out some hotels that sound good, to narrow it down. If you have definitely decided to do this, I would recommend you should have a guidebook already as you will have to buy one anyway, might as well use it for such preliminary planning. Generally, for a first-time tourist in Paris, central areas of the 4th-8th arrondisements (arrondisement is the Parisian term for a quarter or district of the city) will all be fairly convenient for tourism, and safe. They have different ambiences and price ranges, though, and there are hundreds of hotels in these areas. I would especially recommend www.timeout.out/paris (go to hotel section) as a very good list with good comments and descriptions. You can't go wrong with any of their recommendations, I doubt.

Go to france.hotel.guide.com and a map <BR>of Paris will appear. Indicate which arrondissement interests you and a list of hotels appears, from four stars on down. Do your own homework.

also be aware that nothing will be central to everything. You have to make choices and there is always a next time.