We have a beautiful home in Australia. I say this because our expectations could be a little higher when we travel. However, this property exceeded our expectation in all areas. It is not a 'tourist' accommodation, but a place where travellers from around the world come to lay their head before they venture out to feel the essence of Paris. I wanted something like that, quirky, CLEAN and interesting. I don't need to stay in a 5 star hotel and feel like I'm anywhere in the world. This met the expectation on all levels.
Location is brilliant. Two metros are literally 2 minutes walk, down the street is the Bastille, across the road, if you wander down, there are the most fabulous modern art shops, restaurants, the nicest ones I have seen in Paris. The ones where you actually FEEL like you have been in Paris, where there are only 10 seats inside and people queue to sit there. Or where you feel like you belong in a different decade from this one. Where there are accents from everywhere and old men with wrinkled faces and bad teeth conglomerate together at the front, smiling, talking and laughing.
The communications and checkin and check out could not have been better. We arrived early and it was not a problem. We extended our check out and Maria Pia had not problem with it. She did not speak English, but we understood very clearly everything we had to know.
The apartment: Quirky, fun, Parisian, clean! There is everything you need there and I even did a load of washing in the very good washing machine. It is warm, inviting and if you wanted to cook, everything you need is there. Two full bathrooms also made it very easy for us and our two tween daughters to spread out comfortable. It was bigger than we though from the photos.
Safety: I bring this up because for us being a family it was important. There are three different lock to get into the room. There is a code of the main gate, a swiper for the building and a key for the room. In fact, we felt SO safe there, that we left our children (12 years old) in the room and went for a romantic dinner across the road. They had a phone, we had a phone, they were two minutes away from us. But as a parent, this was really important to us. The girls loved the feeling of independence.
In summary, I commented to my husband, that when we go back to Paris, I couldn't imagine taking the chance of staying somewhere else. This just met the all our needs.