Hôtel De Lutèce

Excellent location and very helpful staff. Sympathetic decor and quiet.

The room was very small for the price and not enough space for clothes or luggage.

The breakfast

Beware of the Hotel Lutèce! It bills itself as non-smoking but implicitly allows guests to smoke in their rooms because, as we were told by the hotel’s general manager, French law says that hotel rooms are private spaces in which guests can do whatever they want. Now, we knew that seemingly everyone smokes in France, but we expected that a non-smoking hotel meant that one can’t smoke in the hotel rooms. People in the room directly below ours were smoking on the second night of our stay. Our bathroom became inundated with the heavy smell of cigarette smoke. We had to run the shower for about 15 minutes in order to reduce the heavy smoke smell. This happened again the next morning. When we spoke with the on-duty manager, he said that the hotel was indeed non-smoking, but that they know that guests do open their windows to smoke in their rooms. He also said that all rooms are equipped with smoke detectors. The smoke detectors never went off, either in our room or the smoker’s room below. We then spoke with the general manager of the hotel who offered to move us to a different room, but could give no assurances that a similar situation would not occur. We declined because 1) of the hassle of packing up and 2) why should we have to move because of the actions of the smokers!?). The GM did tell the smokers below us to cease smoking in their room, which they did, but we had already been inconvenienced. We asked the GM to consider some other compensation for us (perhaps a discount on a meal or two at one of the cafes nearby?); she in turn asked the owner who said that the hotel operates under French law and that she, the owner, wasn’t going to offer anything for the inconvenience to us. The GM also told us that the owner was a lawyer, and not really a hotelier. Do not book the Hotel Lutèce on the assumption that you will not be exposed to second-hand smoke in your room. The owner only cares about the bottom line, not her guests.