Hotel des Celestins

I’ve found most of the comments and pictures concerning this hotel to be quite misleading so I wanted to share my experience so that others won’t be surprised or disappointed, as I was. The primary thing visitors need to know is that this is a mixed use building with commercial space on the ground floor and other businesses in the building as well, so as a result the hotel basically lacks the usual common areas such as entry lobby with reception, normal sized elevator, etc. You have to ring to get into the building, go down a narrow hallway/vestibule to access the tiny reception desk which is one flight up, near the cramped breakfast room. To access your room, once you’ve arrived on your floor, you need to use a key to unlock a door to get into the hallway — presumably as a security measure, which is not only unusual (never seen anything like it in decades of staying in hotels of all classes and standards around the world), nor is it particularly reassuring. It’s astonishing with this kind of hotel layout and off-putting features that this place could qualify as a three star establishment. One block away, The Hotel des Artistes, also with three stars and similar room rates, has a proper lobby and looks and feels far superior. Celestins is centrally located and the staff are friendly and helpful but it doesn’t make up for the fact that the experience of staying here is more like being in some kind of peculiar boarding house rather than what you’d expect from a three star hotel.