Campanile Paris 15 – Tour Eiffel

The Campanile Paris 15 - Tour Eiffel feels like the budget hotel that it is. The cheeriest thing about the hotel’s exterior is the sidewalk cafe on the corner. A narrow, seven-story building houses the hotel, its entrance marked by two rather sad potted olive trees chained to the wall. Inside, the decor aims for cheap and cheery and half makes it. The institutional lobby has white tile floors and a wood-veneer check-in counter worthy of the DMV. The lobby seating area and attached breakfast room bring to mind a school cafeteria, with Formica-type tables, red and gray chairs, and an occasional framed photograph on the wall. Two black countertops make up the breakfast-serving area, and a vending machine with snacks is available 24/7. The hotel's location is its one selling point, but even in the same neighborhood there are other value hotels a firm step up from this one. For those counting every penny, it may be a good choice, but others will get more bang for their budget buck elsewhere.

By far the best feature of the Campanile Paris 15 - Tour Eiffel is its 15th Arrondissement location, a 15-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars (the large green space in which the tower sits). It’s also near the large Beaugrenelle Paris shopping mall, with familiar department stores and hundreds of shops and restaurants. Plenty of other restaurants, cafes, bars, and shops are within walking distance, too. You’ll need public transit to reach most sights, and happily there are three metro stops within a 10-minute walk: Dupleix, Charles Michels, and La Motte-Picquet – Grenelle, the latter a hub for three metro lines. One of the most useful forms of public transit is the fast commuter train system RER; its Champ de Mars station is an eight-minute walk from the hotel. By metro the Louvre is about 30 minutes away. By RER, the Jardin des Tuileries is 23 minutes away, the Musée d’Orsay is about 18 minutes away, and Notre Dame is about 24 minutes away. It takes about an hour and five minutes to reach Charles de Galle airport by public transit; by car it ranges from about 40 minutes to an hour and 10 minutes, depending on traffic.

Rooms at the Campanile Paris 15 - Tour Eiffel are standard hostel fare. All rooms are small, with industrial brown carpet, white walls, and low-quality but matching beech-veneer furniture. Each room has a small desk with a chair or chairs and an electric kettle. The bedding is all white; double rooms have a beech-veneer headboard, while singles have a small nightstand instead. There’s little room to maneuver around the bed or beds, and those who’ve brought any luggage with them might soon feel cramped. Each bed has one green pillow; otherwise there’s no color in the rooms, and one framed print is the only attempt at decor. If the rooms are small, the bathrooms are very small. Each has blue tile, with a sink, an extremely small shower, and soap and shampoo dispensers. In addition to the flat-screen TV and free Wi-Fi, one nice feature is that every room has a window or windows that open wide. Single, double, and triple rooms are available, and the hotel’s uniformity means it hardly matters which room you choose, as all are exactly the same. Despite daily housekeeping, it’s worth noting that some guests have complained of bed bugs.

As a budget property, it’s no surprise that the Campanile Paris 15 - Tour Eiffel offers few services and amenities. A small buffet breakfast, available for an additional fee, includes croissants, butter, jam, yogurt, sometimes breakfast meats, coffee, and tea. Wi-Fi is free throughout the property, and the hotel welcomes pets.