French Hotel Reviews

Julie Ballantyne Brown
10 min readJul 15, 2024

Nice places to stay in Paris and Northwest France

My husband and I just returned from a wonderful time in Paris, Normandy, and the Loire Valley as well as a couple of extra days in London. For the first part of our trip, we traveled with a tour company, Globus, so most of the hotels were arranged for us. I know not everyone likes to work like this, but I like to travel with a tour the first time I visit a country, especially one where I don’t speak the language. That gives me an idea of where things are and how they work. When I return, I then have a basic knowledge of the place that I can expand on for solo travel.

Let me also preface this by saying that at every place we stayed, the hotel staff spoke varying degrees of English, which was helpful. I firmly believe that it’s the responsibility of the traveler to acquaint themselves with at least basic phrases of the language wherever you are traveling to, and to use the language as much as you can. It’s respectful and polite. Don’t go somewhere else demanding that people speak to you in English. That’s ridiculously arrogant and rude. That being said, once people knew that we were not fluent in French, they were more than happy to facilitate communication and were absolutely lovely.

The hotels where we stayed were all great in different ways. If you’re planning a trip to France, this may come in handy…

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Julie Ballantyne Brown
Julie Ballantyne Brown

Written by Julie Ballantyne Brown

Future London resident. Follow Julie on Twitter: @BrownBallantyne or on FB and Instagram: @JulieBallantyneBrown

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