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( November 27th, 2009 )
HÔTEL AMOUR
The Hotel Amour is located in a small street between metro St Georges and metro Pigalle - although I prefer la station St Georges, with its discrete petite place, the statue of Gavarni, and the beautiful buildings around. It’s on my favourite metro line, Mairie d’Issy - Porte de la Chapelle, that crosses Paris from south to north, going through Montparnasse, St Germain, Pigalle, Barbès and Montmartre, and back again. The Hotel Amour is adjacent to the Honda motorbike dealer. My friend the photographer Henry Roy brought me there once for lunch a couple of years ago. On my list ever since. Used to be a brothel and has since been reconverted into an affordable boutique hotel by the artist André Saraiva of Le Baron fame. You can still rent for half-day though. I like the bistro ambiance at the Amour, good food, good crowd, good mix of ‘gens du quartier’, guests, and the fashion set. The bay window opens to a back garden. Rocks, pond and red fishes. The smoke lingers and dogs rest under the tables. Glossy black walls in the corridors, glossy red lacquer in some rooms, naked light bulbs, SAS novel collections, old bathtubs, Playboy magazines, robots, whimsical flea market decorations and comfortable beds. No phones or TVs in the rooms, who cares, there’s wireless downstairs. We played foosball in the basement and wrote our names on the toilet walls.


