2 HOTEL AMOUR - the hotel was once a Pigalle house of ill repute - but has plenty of charm, says The Sunday Times' Paris guide of October, 2007. None of the 20 rooms has anything as distracting as a television, says Sarah Turner - nor, in the cheaper rooms, will you have a separate bathroom. "Instead, in rooms such as the beguiling 202, the bath is incorporated into the room."

It all made Rupert Wright a trifle apprehensive - "would there be, instead of a small chocolate, a little blue Viagra pill on the pillow?" he wrote in The Times. His room was painted black and the bookcase full of 1970s porn magazines. You can also rent rooms for the day. But his wife thought the staff "beautiful," dinner in the courtyard was a "buzzy, bohemian affair, with simple, French food" and breakfast was equally good. "The Amour Hotel is a place I could easily lose my heart to - and my wife already has."

Rating: 85/100 - rooms from £71, 8 rue Navarin

What the others say: "The Amour gets back to the basics of what a hotel should provide - a comfortable bed, powerful shower and reasonable towels - with an atmosphere somewhere between arthouse and flophouse" - Conde Nast Traveller

Multimedia

The complete guide to Paris style hotels

In the past four years, we've reviewed more than 50 style hotels in the French capital. So which are the best of the best?

• Hot, hip and historic French hotels

10 classic Paris travel ideas

We've a bateau mouche load of features and ideas on how to make the most of the capital - here are the best

5 Paris spas

From five-star hotels to beauty day spas, five places to get pampered in Paris

Related Links

• Hot, hip and historic French hotels

"From the vintage glamour magazines scattered in the lounge to photos by Terry Richardson, this hotel reeks of rock'n'roll - The Independent

3 HOTEL DU 7e ART - this "charming hotel" celebrates cinema with memorabilia in the 23 rooms, café-bar and corridors, says The Times review of budget Paris hotels in May, 2007. The young owners are "friendly" and the location, on the edge of the Marais, is "superb". It's not the most polished hotel - the wooden panelling in the rooms gives them a chalet feel - but there is a Serge Gainsbourg-style charm. The basement, in 13th-century vaults, houses a small gym and a laundry room.

Nuala Harvey in The Sunday Times Travel Magazine agrees. This is the capital at its "most cheap and cheerful." The 7e is "no glamour puss," instead it is "pure kitsch: all colour and clamour, and as camp as you like." Book No.42 at the top: you’ll need "some puff to get there" (there’s no lift), but you’ll be rewarded with a "characterful refuge under oak-beamed rafters - fling open the windows for a close-up of the rooftops of Paris.

Rating: 78/100 - rooms from £76, 20 rue Saint-Paul

What the others say: Watch the MyVideoPlanet film of the hotel

4 HOTEL CARON DE BEAUMARCHAIS This is for history buffs, says The Sunday Times Travel Magazine. In a candlelit public room, an antique card table remains set up for a game of piquet, and the gentle strains of Mozart come from a rare pianoforte. Its 19 bedrooms are "quaintly cramped", with "worn grey-stone floors", "dainty reproduction armoires" and "floral fabrics".

The hotel, in the heart of the Marais with its bars, boutiques and bistros, is a "saucy little place" decorated in 18th century style with "heavy drapes, languorous curves and pink cheeked shepherdesses," says Kieran Falconer for Times Online. "If you want to carry out your Dangerous Liaisons fantasy, this is the place."

Rating: 77/100 - rooms from £90, 12 Vielle du Temple

Times recommends

• Tuesday: the latest airport and flights news
• Wild Girls hit the Klosters slopes
• Red Sea: the complete guide