Hotel Daval

The two-star Hotel Daval presents an interesting offer: renovated, air-conditioned rooms fit for business travelers and a happening location in the heart of the the Bastille neighborhood’s nightlife.

Quick read

Pros: Comfortable, clean rooms. All rooms with AC. Bastille location near nightlife.

Cons: Very small bathrooms. Street-side rooms noisy. Not particularly charming.

Rooms

The Daval’s 23 rooms aren’t exactly cheap, as doubles run about €100 year ‘round. However, they are spotless, very well maintained and completely non-smoking. They’re also tastefully decorated, with new cherry-wood furniture (beds, desks and chairs) and pastel-colored walls and curtains. Importantly, all rooms have air conditioning (rare for a two-star hotel in Paris), a flat-screen TV and telephone.

Rooms are equipped with double-paned windows, which will help those on the rue Daval side, given the likelihood of wandering merrymakers at night. As the Daval is located near numerous bars and clubs, light sleepers (and anyone else serious about sleep) should ask for one of the rooms facing the courtyard—which is actually a small street with virtually no traffic.

All rooms at the Hotel Daval have a private bath, but our claustrophobic readers should take note: Think bathroom inside a ship’s cabin. They’ve been constructed in one corner of the room and are, shall we say, compact. Each features a small “Italian”-style shower (the water drains into the center of the bathroom floor), a cosmetic mirror and hair dryer.

Hotel

Downstairs, the hotel has a small, impersonal lobby with a reception area, brochures and sitting area. Breakfast is offered for €9.50 and Wi-Fi is free throughout the hotel, but works best in the lobby.

(The Daval also gets bonus points in our book for guarding the early ‘80s font on the hotel sign. Maybe it’s unintentional, but it conjured up fond memories of our long-lost Commodore 64 computer.)

Location

The Hotel Daval’s location on the rue Daval, just off the Place de la Bastille and around the corner from the bar-lined Rue de la Roquette, is a true gift to travelers who plan to make the most of the area’s nightlife. If you don’t plan on bar and club hopping, or would rather not work your way each night past throngs of people hitting the town, this location probably isn’t for you.

The Marais is just a short walk away, as is the Ile St-Louis and Latin Quarter.

Metro: The Hotel Daval is located a two-minute walk to the Bastille Metro station (lines 1, 5 and 8).