Hi Ho!

Behind the massive royal-blue doors of #23 Rue de Seine, on the Left Bank, half a block from the Quai where the Pont des Art intersects the Louvre, hides a courtyard with an art restoration shop. Within this courtyard is a locked double-door into a 6-story building of apartments. Marie Noel (Merry Christmas) meets us with the ever-lilting two-tone doorbell-like intonation: “Bon jour!”

Marie Noel is our greeter who works for France Homestyle, the Seattle-based property management company through which I booked this apartment. There is an elevator that goes to the fifth floor and is rated for three people, but they’d have to be three stick figures. Like most Paris elevators, it can barely fit one within its accordion doors. Instead of people, we pile in our luggage, push the 5th floor button and walk up the five flights of marble steps adorned with Oriental red carpet runners that wind in a dizzying pattern past oval windows, past the elevator and up to the sixth floor.

Our apartment welcomes us with rich honey-colored wide-planked flooring, creaky with age and character, a wall-hanging coat tree with mirror, a small hallway to the right with a half bath sweetly scented by delicate lavender soap. At the end of the hall is a compact U-shaped kitchen. “It is small but has everything,” says Marie Noel, opening cabinets to show the colorful China, wine glasses and basic provisions. The window above the sink frames the gilded dome of the Institut de France, and I gasp at the closeness of its magnificence. “Qui,” says Marie-Noel with a nod, as if seeing a monumental dome out one’s kitchen window were a normal occurrence.

Back in the entry and straight ahead is the public space. A narrow wood stairway spirals down to the guest en suite and up to the master suite, but first, the room opens into the dining area, with French doors on to a small balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. In the center of the room is an imposingly elegant square wood table with 6 straight-backed upholstered seats. Against the wall a marble topped buffet sideboard of carved oak, with statues from the Far East in ivory and porcelain. Beyond there is the living area with sofas draped in white muslin and dappled with red-striped silk pillows, side tables stacked with picture books and billowy-shaded lamps, a blood-red wood coffee table with carved legs, perhaps from Indonesia, a large leafy plant and another French-door balcony. Mirrors, paintings and art nouveau sconces adorn the walls. There is a stereo system and telephone, which Marie Noel explains how to use. There is a bookcase full of interesting reads for which we will have no time. It is elegant and chic and all ours for the next five days!

Marie Noel next guides us down the creaky spiral which enters into a unexpectedly spacious room. To one side is an inviting queen-sized bed with draped canopy, a romantic nook. To another is a large desk backed by a wall of built-in cabinets, including a TV which she apologizes does not work but can be fixed. We assure her we do not care. There is a storage room with one of those marvelously absurd European washers, which take forever to cycle, and unvented dryers that go to a thousand degrees to fry but not dry one’s clothes. And there is a bathroom, more spacious than most Paris hotel rooms, tiled in small black and white octagons, featuring a giant claw-footed tub, and a sturdy deco-era lav, plus a toilet and bidet. We ooh and ahh, grateful that this flat more than compensates for the disappointment of the one in London.

Finally, we tromp up the spiral, past the main floor to the piece d’ resistance: the roof-top 3-sided glass room I’d seen in the website photos. The Eiffel Tower is straight ahead to the north, Sacre Couer gleams white on the eastern hillside, the towers of Notre Dame rise to the south, as do the spires of St. Germaine and St. Supice to the west. For the next 5 nights, on the king-size futon that fills this room, I will fall asleep to the gaudy light show on the Tour Eiffel and wake to the view of it over the Mansard rooftops of Paris.

This glass perch is so above-it-all that even sitting on the toilet one has a clear view of the Eiffel Tower. Who’d have thunk it?

But that’s not all. The glass room opens to a terrace and it is here, on folding cafe chairs around a large wrought-iron and glass table, that the four of us will share meals and laughs and stories and, most of all, create memories to cherish for the rest of our lives.

“It is OK then? You will be happy here?” asks Marie-Noel. Yes, we will be very happy here.

(please see setails and advise under “Note” throughout article)

Optimism dissipated immediately upon entering. The entire apartment was tiny — as in not-able-to-turn-around-without-hitting-something tiny, and shabby (not even shabby chic!). A living room, 2 side-by-side bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a patio with table and chairs. While the photos had not been a lie, they had been taken at such close range (which is all that there is) that we naturally assumed larger spaces surrounded each item.

Note: When renting, assume nothing! Have all your questions answered to your satisfaction.

The living room furniture — a dingy white loveseat and two squat chairs upholstered in gold velvet — shared the common theme of broken springs. The bathroom featured a tub with hand-held shower head and black mold growing in the corners, a small sink and a toilet scrunched against the wall, requiring side-saddle use. We had been left one roll of toilet paper. There was no soap, shampoo or any amenity. Cheap thin and stiff towels were drapped over radiators, no doubt left by the previous vacationers who, like us, had committed to a cleaning fee which was obviously never spent.

Each bedroom fit a queen-size bed with about six inches to spare on each of 3 sides. The linens were of charity shop quality. One bed felt like a futon atop a loose box spring, dense but do-able; the other was raw springs onto which one sank against the plywood box beneath. Jan and Rich, being good sports and not knowing what to expect, tried to insist they could sleep on it.  

The kitchen was adequate but, again, no basics — not even tea and sugar, the British mainstay! The small patio, perhaps the most-redeeming aspect, was littered in dead leaves. I called the landlord who happened to be in London (he and his wife, who own and brilliantly market a number of London flats, live part time in the Bahamas) and began my litany of complaints. Their motto is “We offer more than a set of keys and a flat; we offer personal help and service to ensure your stay is a success.”

His response to my concerns: No one has ever complained about that bed before. (Wow, I guess only vampires slept on it). What if I provided toiletries and they weren’t to your liking? (What if I flew 5,000 miles and just wanted a shower with soap and shampoo?). Basic kitchen supplies like tea and sugar: Well you wouldn’t want to attract ants between visitors, would you? The leaves and dirt covering the patio must have just happened in the last heavy rains. And didn’t he advertise it as “self catering?”  (What was I thinking have such huge expectations?) He assured me that the couple who had last stayed there “just loved it!” Surely, there must be something wrong with me and my group of malcontents.

To his credit, he and his wife delivered that day a laughably-named “heavenly” mattress cover from another flat they own nearby, and covered the box spings so Jan and Richard had a dense, futon-like bed on which to attempt to sleep. [Sleep, we discovered later, was further challenged by the bedrooms facing Holland Road. The double-glazed windows and storm glass had to be closed to shut out the din, making it necessary to leave the door open for air, and no privacy…which was the whole point of getting a 2-bedroom flat.]

He also bought us one small bar of soap and a hotel-sized bottle of shampoo along with directions to the local supermarket “just a 5-minute walk.” It was more like 15 minutes and by this time we were exhausted, aggravated and I was angry at the shoddy surroundings for which I had pre-paid by wire 800-pounds ($1,600!) for 4 nights. If I had any means of recouping my money, I would have ven forfeited the deposit and moved us to a suitable hotel.

NOTE: DO NOT EVER pay for a vacation rental by wire. If they do not take credit cards, or payment in cash upon arrival, do not deal with them!

In all his literature, everything was just a few minute’s walk away. For example, Kensington High Street Tube, he claimed, was a few minutes; it was at least 20 at a brisk walk. The nearest tube station, Kensington Olympia, was touted as “a one minute walk” when, in fact, it was at least five. The owners verifiably skewed sense of time is as perverse as their skewed sense of quality and cleanliness. I believe they sincerely wanted our stay to be a success, but their values and ours were worlds apart and I cannot see how, even at London’s insane prices, this would be considered anything but a rip-off.

Did I mention that instructions at the flat cautioned that the scalding hot water quickly ran out, requiring a squat in the tub for a quick rinse?

Rather than let this miserable flat ruin our vacation, we decided to laugh. What the heck? We were in London and had planned too long and come too far to not enjoy ourselves. Fortunately, this accommodation was by far the worst of the entire trip. (Although we narrowly escaped another in Rouen, France, that would have beaten this).

(article continues in next entry)