We reserved and paid for a room at the Hotel d' italie holiday inn, through holiday inn's web site for sept 15- 17. It said the hotel is .62km from city center. Is this true and
has anyone been in the 13th district or this hotel. Thank You.

We stayed in the Hotel de Weha on Ave de Choisy last February, right off Place d'Italie. Although we were not in "the thick" of Paris, we found the location fairly convenient. The metro was nearby, and an easy trip to other areas of the city. We are walkers, though, and found ourselves walking miles around Paris. The 13th has lots of shopping and restaurants, so it should be fine for you. You can go to mappy.com for actual mileage from your hotel to specific sites. Enjoy!

Thanx Allison for your help.

The 13th also has an exceptionally good bistro, Au Petit Marguery. It's our favorite spot for dining in Paris.

Since you're staying in the 13th you might want to pay a visit to the Gobelins tapestry factory.

I don't know what they are calling 'center'. I set the location of the metro stop 'St Michel'(very central) as a destination using www.mappy.com:

Holiday Inn Express d'Italie
178 BOULEVARD VINCENT AURIOL, 75013
This address is a 3km walk to location of Metro: St Michel

Holiday Inn Bibliothèque de France
21 r. de Tolbiac 75013
This address is a 4km walk to location of Metro: St Michel

Both are located near a metro however. While there aren't any 'sights' in the immediate area, lots of people live there so there will be shops and places to eat. Hop the metro or a bus to go to your 'must sees'...

oh I know that area pretty well and I've seen that hotel. It's kind of a boring area, that's for sure, but with the metro right there you can get away easily (all of the 13th isn't boring, I mean right where that hotel is). It sounds like Allison was right nearby.

It's not .62 km from city center meaning Notre Dame -- I suspect what they were measuring was the distance to the southern border of the 5th arrondisement, that sounds about that distance. They are probably considering the inner ring of arrondisements city center.

If you do end up staying in the 13th (or even if you don't), try L'Avant Gout for dinner. Absolutely delicious, and, for Paris, quite inexpensive. We had Christmas Eve dinner there last December. It didn't disappoint.

You can read a review of it here:
http://chocolateandzucchini.com/arch...lavantgout.php

I stayed in Les Gobelins in April, and really enjoyed the 5th & 13th arrondissements. Walk over to Marche Moufferat. I was about a 20 minute walk from the Pantheon, and Jardin du Luxembourg, about 30-40 to Notre Dame. If you go up to the hotels section of this site, you might find guest reviews for your hotel.

Ninasdream has a spot on her eyeglasses - she meant to say 'marché Mouffetard'... that's a market street in the 5th arr. Also there's an area in the 13th called the "Butte aux Cailles" that has small houses with gardens, a contrast to the formal Haussman style architecture you will see in Paris. Find Metro stop Corvisart on your Paris map, then run your finger just below it to find the area. I'm planning to have a look myself in October. Well, I'm remembering you have 3 days, so you will probably have a full itinerary already!

It sound to me as if the 13th may work out to be a pretty good place to be based in. thanx

Hi bb,

There is a good map of Paris at www.multimap.com.

Just enter your address. It will show you the nearby metro stops.