el13207

If you like Provencal fabric check out Souleiado and Les Olivades which have shops near one another; Les Olivades is at 1 rue de Tournon and Souleiado is at 78 rue de Seines. I try to stop at both every time I'm in Paris- hard to find in US now that all US Souleiado stores have closed.
Also, we love Le Relais de l'Entrecote for steak frites at 20 rue St.Benoit- a chain, yes, but consistently good and the price is right. Even David Lebowitz recommends them!

Pepper_von_snoot

Le Bon Saint Pourçain restaurant near Église Saint-Sulpice. Recommended by Ines de la Fressange.

I also like Gerard Mulot and Laduree in the rue Bonaparte.

Thin

letsgeaux

We really enjoy the vibe of the neighborhood your hotel is in. A few years ago we rented an apartment on rue Mazarine which is a block away from d' Aubusson. Our favorite church around there is St. Sulpice, a beautiful church that features some of the best organ music around. At the high mass on Sunday morning they let you climb up to the organ loft and stand next to the organist while he is playing. We did this one Easter Sunday. My two favorite St. Germaine bakeries are Pierre Herme on Place St. Sulpice and Gerard Mulot near the Odeon. If I could get macarons like that at home I would weigh 300 lbs. There are a lot of wonderful casual and atmospheric cafes around there but we usually look elsewhere around town for a high concentration of upscale, fine dining restaurants. My top recommendation along those lines is Allard. I would also recommend L'Alcazar which was right next to our apartment.On a nice day, get a take out crepe from L'Avant Comptor and eat it on a park bench in the Luxemburg Gardens.

Christina

In some parts of Paris you can actually hear french spoken.
Not in Saint Germaine.>>

Not even in Saint Germain. This is a very well-known French saint who is not a woman. He was bishop of Paris

vincenzo32951

>>Some parts are less touristy. In some parts of Paris you can actually hear french spoken.
Not in Saint Germaine.<<

Someone should mention that to the people there who were speaking French when I visited. Or maybe they were from Quebec.

WoinParis

Definitely from Quebec or more probably Senegalese, who speak with more like a french accent..

Honestly I always surprise the staff of hotels I go to (inc Dauphine, 35 m from d'Aubusson) when I check in in French.
But some people don't want to believe the locals, I suppose they'll say I'm anti-american when I say so.

Good of you to know Germain is a male, Christina, OP didn't make the mistake btw.

mjs

I must say that I like the area. First visited staying in nearby student housing long ago and although I have tried housing all over Paris I keep coming back to the area around the Rue de Buci. Generally only stay in Paris for a few days now on route to somewhere else so find the Citadines nearby comfortable. Like having a kitchen and enjoy the simple foods you can find around the area. Have done the Michelin star restaurants in the past but have gotten simpler with repeat visits. Great location for first time visitors as its close to so many tourist sites.

vincenzo32951

>>But some people don't want to believe the locals, I suppose they'll say I'm anti-american when I say so. <<

I've met Paris locals in St. G. Should I believe them? Who said anything about Americans?

Sarastro

<i>I've met Paris locals in St. G. Should I believe them?</i>

Excellent. Glad to hear that there are a few left.

vincenzo32951

On send thought, they probably were Americans posing as Parisians. They were all wearing berets with a US flag stitched on. A dead giveaway.

WoinParis

Second thought, but no second degree.

kelsey22

For a first visit to Paris, (ok second), it was a perfect choice. I walked most of the time to everywhere I wanted to go. No doubt, it was touristy but I was a tourist. I enjoyed being able to wander and have a late night ice cream and watch the street performers - authentic? Perhaps not ....but I count my 16 days in the area as one of the best trips. I stayed across the street from your hotel and didnt find it particularly noisy.

Bette

Not far from your hotel we loved our dinner at Au 35 (on rue Jacob).

http://restaurantau35.fr/en

kerouac

I really despise the area, not visually or for walking through it, but because of the expense, the "American tourist ghetto" factor (but not forgetting that there are other "tourist ghettos" such as the Grands Boulevards for Germans of the Champs Elysées for tourists from the Gulf), and the general hype.

But I am in an extremely tiny minority on mostly American travel forums, so you should choose whatever you think is what you would like.

kelsey22

@Kerouac - I got many of my travel ideas from you. I cans ee why you "hate" it...still as a base it was good.

Belinda

By the way, your hotel has a quite nice Jazz Lounge.

StCirq

I totally agree with kerouac.

frenchaucoeur

This seems to be a running commentary--whether St Germain is a lovely and convenient place to stay (say the tourists) or a fake version of Paris best left to nostalgists and affluent visitors who are seeking a movie version of Paris that bears little resemblance to the real city.

As a Manhattanite who is forever telling people that Times Square has nothing to do with New York, I have some sympathy for the anti-St G viewpoint. I have wasted a lot of breath suggesting that visitors spend time away from the Broadway-Rockefeller Center--Bloomingdale's axis and see parts of the city that are much more "authentic," whatever that means.

Yet the fact is that, as a woman of a certain age who has visited Paris nearly twenty times, I choose to say in a neighborhood close to the center of the city, easy walking distance to places I love. I have spent a fair amount of time in the eastern parts of the city, but the fact is that I feel more like a tourist in the 10th and 11th arrondissements, where everybody is thirty years younger than I am and too too cool, than I do in the residential part on the border of the 6th and 7th where I stay.

Can we all agree that both viewpoints are valid and represent people's different interests and needs?

Nikki

I second the recommendation of the jazz bar in the Hotel d'Aubusson, the Cafe Laurent, which has live music Wednesday through Saturday evenings in a very nice atmosphere.

Pepper_von_snoot

Yes, Kerouac, but you are not posh. You are working class.

I like the 6th because I have been raised to eat my breakfast cereal out of a Sèvres bowl and to bathe with soap from Farmaceutica Santa Maria Novella.

I find the 6th very chic with Jerome Dreyfuss, Cafe Flore, Deyrolle, Laduree, Dalloyau, Christian Lacroix, and Louis Vuitton.

Catherine Deneuve lives in the 6th so I find your "tourist" comments bizarre.

Thin