5 Best Hotels in Around the Louvre, Paris

Since 1835, Paris's first palace hotel has welcomed royalty and celebrities from the Duchess of Windsor to Salvador Dalí and continues to enchant with service, style, and views. Le Meurice also appeals to art-history aficionados: contemporary sculpture, antiques, and attractive murals adorn rooms, corridors, and sumptuous dining areas. Classic rooms have a gilded Napoleonic Empire style, with antique furnishings covered in elegant French and Italian brocades. The modern spa includes Swiss Valmont facials, Thermes Marins de St-Malo body treatments, and "By Terry" makeovers. Expect children to be pampered with their own Meurice teddy bear called Pistache, tot-size slippers and bathrobe, and sweet treats. There's even a premium pet service that provides a VIP welcome for furry family members. The three-star Michelin restaurant run by chef Amaury Bouhours on behalf of Alain Ducasse serves gastronomic menus in one of the most beautiful grand siècle settings in the city, with a design by Philippe Starck and pastries from superstar pâtissier Cédric Grolet.

One of the city's most historic properties (a teenaged Marie-Antoinette took piano lessons here), it is also as sumptuous and majestic as any hotel in Paris. Each of the 78 rooms and 46 suites sports a unique, sophisticated decor, but what they all have in common is curated artworks, custom furnishings, luxurious linens, heated marble floors in the bathrooms, and butler service. The common areas are splendid, and the two restaurants—a casual grill and a gem-like gastronomic dining room—draw guests and local foodies. Crowds also flock to Les Ambassadeurs, one the city's most beautiful bars. The on-site pâtisserie and a spa firmly situate the Crillon as one of Paris's preeminent palace hotels.

Of Paris's palace hotels, the Mandarin Oriental is among the most contemporary, with a soaring marble entryway and a sleek, luxe style that is a welcome contrast to the historic grande dames. The hotel has cultivated a fiercely loyal clientele that relishes its lovely, Asian-inspired rooms, featuring lustrous dark-wood furnishings and creamy walls, accented with deep mauve or taupe, and spotless white-marble baths.

In novels, songs, and common parlance, there's not a word that evokes the romance and luxury of Paris better than the Ritz. Since its opening in 1898, the storied hotel has attracted le tout Paris: the personalities synonymous with the city who burnished the hotel's prestige with their glamour and mystique—Marcel Proust, Coco Chanel, Ernest Hemingway. While all the revered nooks stay reassuringly the same, albeit buffed to a new gleam (including the hallowed Hemingway bar and the legendary pool), state-of-the-art enhancements include a sybaritic Chanel spa, a retractable roof over the interior garden, a €8,600-a-night Hemingway Suite with private patio, and a sumptuous restoration of each of the hotel's 143 rooms.

This luxury hotel located down a quiet street between the Tuileries and Grands Boulevards brings a touch of Italian flair to the French capital. Behind the relatively understated façade sits a plush interior decked out in colorful velvet and satin. Suites and rooms in the Rivoli wing of the hotel are decorated in a French style evoking the 1930s, while in the Opera wing, more contemporary decor allows the views to do much of the talking. The menu of the on-site restaurant, L'Assaggio, is developed in partnership with Michelin-starred chef Ugo Alciati, with an offering of northern Italian specialties to enjoy in the dining room or the beautiful courtyard terrace.