"Within walking distance of the major sights"
 

As a long-time Paris resident and occasional, traveler who will go long and far to enjoy exceptional lodging/and/or food(for example: www.hoteldecarantec.com or http://www.scottshotel.com/eng/) I'm puzzled by the number of posts that seem to insist on a hotel or other lodging within walking distance of the major sites, especially in a city like Paris, with superlative public transportation. It can't be simply that people enjoy walking; one can walk whenever and wherever one wants, regardless of where one is sleeping. So what is it?

It seems pretty simple to me. Time is very important to some people. If you are already amidst the major sites, you don't have to spend time on public or private transportation.

I don't think it's quite that simple. Walking time from "major site" No. 1 to "major site" No. 2 in Paris may be longer than Metro a taxi time to either from a hotel that's a bit farther away.

I think it's just people's way of saying they want to be in a central location. I always find it a bit peculiar too, though - how could one expect centuries of architects and city planners to lay out a city so that today's traveler can walk to everything? Gee, it's such a shame that Sacré Coeur is so far a walk from the Tour Eiffel - someone must have goofed! :)

But really, I think it's just that people want reassurance that their hotel isn't out in the boonies somewhere.

I spent 3 days in Paris recently, hit the major sites, and walked to all of them. DH and I like to walk and don't want to bother with taxis or trains/subways unless absolutely necessary. The weather was beautiful, too, so why spend time cooped up in transport? It really is that simple.

I'll admit it, I'm just lazy! :-)

I have stayed in hotels in the middle of the tourist sites and ones that weren't. Aside from the ease of access I get the feeling of really being there, being in the place a I came to see. If I can step out of my hotel front door and within a few steps be able to see Notre Dame or the Trevi Fountain or Big Ben then I feel like I am where I came to be.

I think a lot of this is simply a first-timer's misconceptions about the size of a city. The same request always shows up for NYC - since most people don;t seem to understand that the "downtown" - not downtown NYC - but the generic name for the central area - runs miles in each direction. I believe they are thinking about their own small towns - where the central area may be 10 blocks by 10 blocks - and think that in a major city it is a little bigger.

(There was even one poster who wanted a hotel that overlooked both Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower if I recall - can't understand why these people don;t simply look at a map as a first step.)

Tallalah,

Lazy people take the Metro! Energetic people walk, and I salute them, though I still don't understand why they need to so so from their lodgings. St. Cirq's thought is a good one, though. That may be it.

>...they are thinking about their own small towns - where the central area may be 10 blocks by 10 blocks...<

The central area of my small town is no larger than 2 blks by 2 blks. :)

((I))

Dave: I live in London and, believe me, half the time it's FAR less effort to walk than it is to deal with the tube!! Point taken, however!

Dave--I disagree. If you are located where many of the major sights are located, you don't have to walk to the public transport, wait for the public transport, and then walk from the public transport to the sight.

Sure there will be times when a sight would take longer to get to walking than by public transport even if you stay in a central location, but then you can still opt to use public transport to get to that particular sight.

Rufus,

How about a test? The next time you're in town, we'll draw 10 "major sights" from a hat. You set out from your centrally located hotel and just "touch base" at all 10 of your sites by foot, and I'll do the same with the 10 I draw, setting out by bus/Metro/taxi from home in the "boondocks" -- the 11th arrondissement. Then we'll compare total time spent. Winner gets a meal in a restaurant of the loser's choice!

This raises good points, I was reminded of the issue of distances on my own recent return visit to Paris.
I stayed in a well-located hotel in the 6th, well-located in the sense that it was a 5-7 minute walk to the nearest metro (Odeon). We walked to restaurants in the 5th, even 20-25 minute walks were fine. Another day we walked from the Arc to rue Royale, an invigoratingly healthy walk. One evening we walked from Notre Dame back to our hotel, another good walk.

But, one evening as we were leaving the Orsay museum around closing time, I proposed to my friend that we walk back to our hotel along Boul St Germain, after all, we were 'only' walking from the 7th to the 6th. 30 minutes later we were still walking (not meandering, walking), and we were freezing. Around Brasserie Lipp we gave up and got a taxi. My point being that even adjacent areas can lead to very long walks indeed, and, exertion aside, a lot of time can be used up, especially if sightseeing time is a precious commodity, as Rufus mentioned earlier. So there ARE times I think when the metro is a significant timesaver,even when the hotel has a 'central' location.

I don't draw my points of interest from a hat, so I'm afraid Dave's method would't apply to me.

It is a matter of fact, not opinion, that it's <u>always</u> more economical to stay in accommodations away from the city center and commute to whatever area you want to visit. (Disregarding smokin' deals from priceline.com, naturally.) If you are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to avoid a ten-minute subway ride twice a day, this discussion doesn't apply to you.

If you want to maximize your sightseeing time, walking from place to place is sometimes the optimal choice. But only rarely. Figure out the bus system and you can save a few minutes here and a few minutes there, adding up to hours over a week's tour.

Not only that, but you simply <u>can't walk to everything</u>, so transit is going to enter the picture no matter where you sleep. Decide what's more important to you and make your choice.

It goes without saying that if you would rather walk, efficiency can't be debated.

Dave--note that I did not exclude the use of public transportation in my scenario. Only that the starting point would be centrally located in my scenario.

Rufus,

We're veering toward agreement. Sometimes it's better to take a cab, bus or taxi, and sometimes it's better to walk. More broadly, I'm seeking to be a little provocative, and hoping to get folks thinking of Paris whole -- all 20 arrondissements of it. There are always tradeoffs in lodging; there is no perfect hotel. It's great to be centrally located, but it also can be great to have a wonderful room in a fine, upscale neighborhood that's a short Metro ride away from most major sights -- especially if the price is right. For example, I invite you to look at the following hotel, a three-minute walk from the Port Maillot, actually outside Paris -- just. We stayed there in November. (Why, since we live here? Believe it or not, because we wanted to watch CNN, which we don't have at home.) But more to the point, because their top-line suite, booked through Rates To Go, was a fabulous deal at 230 euros. Do take a look. And I rest my case, such as it is.

http://www.lavillamaillot.fr

Happy travels.

Dave

Ah, let 'em stay in the central area hotels, keeps the prices down for the rest of us ;)

And Robespierre, your point is very-well-taken, too. The Hotel Cosmos, at 35 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud in the 11th arrondissement, has top-price rooms with private baths at 55 euros a night. It's a fine, small, family-run hotel, often used by European tour groups, with an elevator to the 5th floor, in a lively neigboorhood with loads of restaurants nearby, including the classic, affordable Astier just across the street. Eight minutes to the Seine by Metro. It doesn't get much better, or more economical, than that!

No, thanks. I'd rather pay $250-$300 for something really classy - the sort of thing that costs $500 &quot;within walking distance of the major sights.&quot;

We enjoy the smaller, family-run hotels, too. As long as they have air conditioning in the summer. And we don't usually stay in the midst of the tourist center in a big city--however, I do understand why someone might want to do so.

On another thread, it was clear that Robespierre and I were engaged in an argument about whether centrally located hotels were a better fit for some &quot;hypothetical&quot; (first-time - - an assumption perhaps not shared between us) traveler to such major city destinations as Rome, Florence or Venice. The contrarian position was that the &quot;commute time&quot; for hotels located away from the centr was rarely a burden, and an overlooked cost-savings.

Have I summarized the difference in our positions accurately, R?

In my final posting on that thread, I concluded that were too many variables in &quot;city X&quot; - - not too mention too many different points on the spectrum of travelers who value money versus time/convenience - - and that further arguing could only be meaningful comparing spcifics: hotel X vx Y in city Z for a given traveler, with n number of days/nights, and a specific budget range as well as defined objectives.

Given all that, I would agree that walking access to &quot;major sights&quot; wouldn't be very important, in my book, in Paris specifically. In Florence or Salzburg or Brugge, it might.

Best wishes,

Rex

I think each traveler has a preference. There is not a &quot;one size fits all&quot; solution. We normally stay &quot;within walking distance of the major sights&quot;. However, on a trip to Rome about 15 years ago, we stayed in a lovely hotel far from the city center. We were not happy with that trip to Rome and didn't know precisely why. And we didn't visit Rome on our next 2 trips to Italy. Three years ago, we returned and loved it and finally realized it was because we were staying in a very central area - near the Pantheon. I guess that means we prefer staying in the think of things. To each his own.

This is a common request, and often makes no sense in many cities. I live in Wash DC and often see posts on Fodors about people who want a hotel within walking distance of all the museums and the monuments. The fact that the distance between the Supreme Court building and the Lincoln Memorial may be close to two miles doesn't occur to them, nor do they bother to look it up. I think sometimes they really think it's like Disneyland or something -- that cities were just built to have nice little small areas with all the attractions right there in one place.

I think it's sort of like wanting to be sure you're in a central area, but more than that, as they are often specific about the being able to walk to things rather than saying that. I think sometimes it's because they are afraid that the public transportation system may be complicated or they won't be able to figure it out and they are concerned about that, and thus want to know they'll be able to walk to things without worrying about how to figure out how to ride an underground system, especially if signs etc are in foreign languages.

I hate to jump into the middle of a private argument, but there are a few things everyone seems to be overlooking. Sometimes the weather is inclement and walking is not an option. Think Venice during the high water. I have walked across benches to enter St. Mark's, but was happy to return to my hotel to change shoes.
Sometimes you don't want to go to the same place as the person you are traveling with; a central location makes it easier to regroup.
Or, some of us, who are early risers, travel with those who like to sleep in. Once again, it is easier to meet up with them if your hotel is centrally located.

Please let everyone know when the day arrives that you can get EVERYONE HERE TO AGREE on the definition of &quot;within walking distance.&quot;

Until then I would tend to agree it is a euphemism for &quot;not out in the boonies&quot; and that's about all it is.

That depends on your definition of &quot;out in the boonies.&quot;

<i>DC al fine</i>

&quot;Paris is full of wonders smaller than the Eiffel Tower and far off the guidebook path.&quot;

&lt;&lt;I think sometimes it's because they are afraid that the public transportation system may be complicated or they won't be able to figure it out and they are concerned about that&gt;&gt;

There is still a widespread belief/perception (among Americans) that using public transportation is consideranly less appealing than what &quot;we&quot; know and use everyday: our cars and free places to park. For so much of where &quot;we&quot; live - - in rural, small town and suburban America, these notions are a mix of prejudice and just the plain truth: public transportation is slower, a hassle, and is generally much more &quot;class mixed&quot; than the world we encounter in our cars.

So, armed with the knowledge that moving around in cars, with free parking, won't work in so many vacation destinations, there is a desire to cling to the mode &quot;we&quot; know second best: walking. The fact that it is <i>slower, a hassle, and (just as) &quot;class mixed&quot;</i> (than public transportation) gets relatively dismissed, at least until we get there. Even then, &quot;we&quot; rationalize that walking is to be preferred for many routes - - to be able to see places up close and personal, especially on an impulse. And we figure it's a welcome change from a more sedentary, more rat-race-y lifestyle from which we are vacationing.

I have to agree with TravelsWithStDavid.

My husband and I enjoy walking, usually 4-5 miles a day at home, but also use public transportation without trauma. We don't necessarily like to do everything together and a centrally located hotel gives us a place to meet (and a place for me to drop off packages if I've been shopping.)

That convenience, for us, is worth a little more costly stay.

I think that it's probably more important to pick the neighborhood you like, and I do think that a central neighborhood is quite crucial.

And I think that the cab becomes much more feasible if you stay in &quot;the center of town,&quot; however that's defined. You could stay in an arrondissement further out, but then cab costs would be more expensive, and your only option is the Metro.

Also, if I'm going to stay out late at night, the Metro will stop running at a certain point. If I'm in a central location I can walk home or take a cab. I don't want to be out until 2 in the morning and worry if I can make it back to my hotel easily.

I don't think that a couple of Metro stops can be ignored so easily -- there's a certain psychological effect, and the central location has a certain cachet.

Take NYC, where I live, for example. For a very long time, Brooklyn and Queens always seem far. But that's changing because the prices in the city have reached such stratospheric levels. Though Willamsburg (in Brooklyn, for example) is only one stop from the E. Village on the L train, it's only become hip within the past ten years. And, if you live in Willamsburg, cabs are scare and you must use car service or rely on the L train.

So, in NYC, where the subway system pretty much gets you wherever you want to go, location is still everything, not just for tourists but also for the people who actually live here. The same argument can be applied to a city like Paris (which admittedly, I don't know as well) or London.

That's nothing new. The cabs downtown have always been scare.

Let me tell you sometime about a cab ride from LaGuardia to JFK the afternoon the Mets won the pennant.

Well, I'm one of 'those'. Having been raised on the west coast, I'm afraid I have a 'thing' about subways. I will (and have) take(en) taxis. However, they are expensive. I do take buses occasionally, but they aren't always much fun. There's also some truth to the 'can't figure out the system'. I will have really limited time in Paris and I just don't want to spend it that way. I have friends who say that fears of terrorism cause them to avoid public transit in foreign countries. So, to each his own.

This reminds me of the post wwhen someone said, not seriously, maybe wistfully, that too bad all the paintings and statues the poster wanted to see in the Louvre were not in one room.

&quot;There's also some truth to the 'can't figure out the system'.&quot;

In my experience, that's a really strange statement to make. I've never noticed anything about public transport systems that needed any &quot;figuring out.&quot;

One determines which stop or station one wants to go to, and gets on the bus or train that goes there.

To me, bus and subway systems don't require any more &quot;figuring out&quot; than airline schedules. You buy a ticket for your destination and go to the correct gate.

This is not rocket science.

Well, ok, Robespierre -- but that special day is not representative.

I do grant you that in a place like NYC, it can be difficult to get a cab during rush hour. But then this underlines the argument even more -- if they're not an option, one can still walk or take the subway. But if you're further out, your only option is the subway. If you live in Williamsburg, and your only train option is the L, and it's not running for some reason, you're screwed. You either have to use the J/M/Z or take a bus and switch.

And that's technically one stop away from Manhattan.

So location is everything.

There are a whole lot of valid points above, and I don't think there is one reason that applies to all.

I have one major problem with a hotel that is &quot;out in the suburbs&quot; where you need to take public transportation. When I stay in the 5th or 6th, I can walk to D'Orsay in the morning. Maybe at noon I'll head back to the hotel or apt. and change clothes -- that long sleeve shirt is not too heavy for the afternoon, or I'll change to shorts and go jogging in Luxembourg Gardens. Then afterwards, I'll want to take a shower, so head back to the hotel and change again. Maybe I want to rest awhile before heading out in the afternoon. Maybe I'd like to do casual drinks in the late afternoon, before returning to the hotel to change for dinner as that night we're going to a very dressy place. When dinner is over, it's nicer to take a pleasant stroll back to the hotel instead of getting on a brightly lit metro car.

I don't like having to make &quot;a day trip&quot; into the city. I want to be able to hop back and forth to my hotel or apartment at leisure. I like feeling I'm in the midst of things.

And as someone above said, &quot;I like staying in the midst of what I came there to see.&quot;

Exactly, Patrick. I'll use NYC as an example again. A friend lives in Inwood, which is not &quot;the suburbs,&quot; but it's basically the last stop on the A train. It'd take forty minutes for him to get in, and he always says that once he's out he'll have to be out the whole day.

Granted, the Paris distances are shorter but the same reasoning applies.

When you &quot;head back to the hotel,&quot; you can either do it on foot or on wheels.

On foot, you can go a mile in 15 minutes. Further than that, walking is a waste of time.

On bus or subway, you can go 10 miles in 15 minutes. It still takes a half-hour to do the round-trip to change your shirt or whatever.

Staying &quot;in the middle of things&quot; is a laudable goal, I suppose, but unless you restrict your activities to the block your hotel is in, you're kidding yourself that it's faster.

Well, there's also the psychological feeling, as I mentioned.

Honestly, I wish that more people thought like you, Robespierre. If so, then you wouldn't have Rupert Murdoch buying a 45 million dollar apartment on 5th Avenue (granted, that's now been topped by another tycoon in the Hamptons) or prices topping $1000/sq foot in Manhattan these days (with the average price of an apartment now over a million). If prices in the city crashed, I could actually afford the stratospheric prices. :-)

After all, I could just tell all these poeple -- why stay in Manhattan, because you can just take the train in? It's really just as close. And don't you know that crosstown traffice between the East and West sides of town can take 40 minutes? You could commute to Yonkers in that time. I think you shouldn't bother with Manhattan.

Did I say location is everything?