Located directly across the street from the Sorbonne, the most famous school in France, the two-star Hotel Cluny Sorbonne offers clean, basic, and cheap rooms in a typical 18th-century building (with an elevator).
The 23 rooms are comfortable, if bland, and painted in pretty pastels. Furniture is Grandma-style, and rooms are outfitted with old wooden writing desks and armoires. Many rooms have flat-screen TVs and rooms on the fifth and sixth floors provide romantic rooftop views of the neighborhood. Baths are rather dated, but clean and functional.
The hotel has been around for a while and it shows: A plaque on the facade reminds passers-by that the poet Rimbaud stayed here in 1862. The building provided student housing in the 1960s, and has been run as a hotel by the same hardworking family since 1976.
Note: Breakfast is available for €6.
» Heather Stimmler-Hall
Note: This hotel was visited by a EuroCheapo editor and is recommended based on cleanliness, location, price and overall quality. EuroCheapo did not charge this hotel to be listed.
About the Cluny Sorbonne neighborhood
The student district of Paris since the 13th century, the Latin Quarter is located in the Left Bank's 5th arrondissement, and includes the Ile de la Cité in the center of the Seine. It's home to the Sorbonne University, the vast Jardin des Plantes on its eastern end, the Place St-Michel, the Panthéon on the Ste-Geneviève hilltop, and Notre Dame Cathedral on the Ile de la Cité. It's a lively area of Paris completely overrun with students and tourists and the cheap shops and eateries that cater to both constituencies.
After dark, the masses congregate in the pubs around the Place de la Contrescarpe and the clubs off the winding Rue de la Huchette. Many of the buildings in the Latin Quarter date back to the 1600s, something to keep in mind when choosing a hotel where ancient wooden beams and exposed stone walls come with winding, uneven stairs and tiny rooms.
more about Latin Quarter