Where to stay · Rooftop-view design hotel · €€€ · 6e · Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Hôtel Dame des Arts
A board-formed concrete building at the Danton–Saint-Germain corner, interiors by Raphael Navot, opened 2023. The seventh-floor terrace gives a true 360 — Eiffel Tower one way, Notre-Dame the other.
Booking through this link may earn par.is a commission. Same price as anywhere.
The rooftop opens to non-guests April–October and books out; staying here is the surest way onto it at sunset.
Getting there
- Saint-Michel Notre-Dame4RER BRER C140 m · 3 min walk
- Odéon410170 m · 3 min walk
- Cluny - La Sorbonne10240 m · 5 min walk
Around the corner
Place Saint-Michel · 160 m away
The Place Saint-Michel is a public square in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It lies on the borderline between the 5th and 6th arrondissements, on the left bank of the river Seine. It faces the Île de la Cité, to which it is linked by the Pont Saint-Michel.
Wikipedia ↗Walks that pass nearby
- Latin Quarter under 30 minutesstop 1 of 6 · 160 m
Place Saint-Michel
Opened 1855, the southern end of Boulevard Saint-Michel. The Fontaine Saint-Michel (the giant relief of the archangel slaying the dragon) is from the same year — a Haussmann-era theatrical set piece. The square was the site of major student-uprising barricades in May 1968.
Best photographed from the south side of the square looking up. The fountain is most striking after dark when the bronze of Saint Michael catches lamp-light. From here, walk east along Rue de la Huchette.
- Bouillons & Brasseriesstop 5 of 6 · 160 m
Vagenende
142 Boulevard Saint-Germain, opened 1904. Art Nouveau interior almost untouched since opening — flower-mosaic frieze, etched glass, brass fittings — and classified a historical monument in 1966. Reasonable prix-fixe lunch.
The 25 € prix-fixe lunch is the best Belle-Époque-room-for-the-money in Paris. The mosaic frieze of seasons running around the upper walls is the photograph; ask for a banquette table, not the centre.
- Literary Cafésstop 1 of 7 · 260 m
Le Procope
Opened 1686 — the oldest continuously operating café in Paris. Voltaire is said to have drunk forty cups of coffee a day here. Benjamin Franklin came to draft parts of what became the U.S.–France alliance. The wood-panelled rooms upstairs still feel 18th-century.
Ask to sit upstairs — the ground floor is the bar, the upper floor is the original 18th-century rooms with Voltaire's writing desk on display. Best as a coffee or aperitif stop; the food is fine but the prices are tourist.
- Saint-Germain in 90 minutesstop 6 of 6 · 280 m
Cour du Commerce Saint-André
1735 covered passage, one of the oldest in Paris. Cobblestoned, lined with restaurants. Le Procope (1686 — the oldest café in the city) opens onto the passage; Marat's printing press was at no. 8; Guillotin built and tested his eponymous device's prototype on sheep at no. 9.
Enter from Rue Saint-André-des-Arts via the small archway with the wrought-iron sign. Walk slowly — the cobblestones are uneven and beautiful, and there's a fragment of the 12th-century Wall of Philippe Auguste visible inside one of the courtyards. Le Procope is at no. 13.
Within a few minutes' walk
- L'Avant Comptoir de la MerStanding seafood wine bar€€ · 5 minCamdeborde's standing seafood annexe: a zinc bar, a corridor, and fifty photo-posters strung overhead in lieu of a menu. The warm whelks with wasabi mayo and the razor clams marinière justify the elbowing.
- Le Comptoir du RelaisBistro / brasserie€€ · 5 minThe counter that launched a thousand bistronomy imitations, now under Bruno Doucet but unchanged in character. By day it serves brasserie plates and country terrines without a reservation; by night it turns into a prix-fixe siege.
- Bouillon RacineBouillon€€ · 5 minA 1906 Art Nouveau dining hall — carved wood, bevelled mirrors, listed as a monument — serving honest bouillon fare at prices that haven't chased the décor. The travers de porc de Picardie is the dependable order.
- Le Caveau de la HuchetteJazz cellar€€ · 5 minA vaulted 16th-century stone cellar run as a swing and bebop club since 1949, with a live band and a packed dance floor every night. Come to dance, not to watch.
- Le ChampoRepertory cinema€ · 6 minA two-screen repertory house on the rue des Écoles since 1938, run on retrospectives and ciné-clubs rather than new releases — a complete István Szabó cycle one season, the occasional seven-hour anime marathon with coffee and croissants at dawn.
- Citadines Saint-Germain-des-PrésAparthotel€€ · 6 minThe Ascott group's aparthotel chain — dependable if dated — with studios and one-beds that carry kitchenettes; this branch sits on the Seine opposite the Pont-Neuf.
Landmarks nearby
The district · 6e
Saint-Germain-des-Prés — The literary Left BankThe cafés where the existentialists held court — Flore, Deux Magots, Lipp — plus the Luxembourg Gardens and the city's densest run of galleries and antiquaires. Expensive, polished, and aware of it.
Best for: Those who want the postcard Left Bank and have the budget for it.
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