Palais Royal

In the last years of her life, Colette travelled very little. Arthritis kept her close to the bed she called her raft, positioned near the window of her apartment overlooking the Palais-Royal gardens. From there she watched the lime trees, the gardeners, the children and the changing light on the gravel. Her lamp had a shade of blue paper, and when it was lit, her friends knew she was writing. Jean Giraudoux, walking past below, used to tell his dog to say hello to Madame Colette. Few writers made staying indoors look so interesting.

The Grand Hôtel du Palais Royal, around the corner on rue de Valois, offers a rather pleasant variation on her arrangement. It is not a hotel for being seen. It is a hotel for looking out, and its room categories read almost like a list of different Parises.

The choice begins modestly. A Superior Room is just nineteen square metres, with a view of a street, courtyard or the little Place de Valois. An Executive Room gives you more space and a better look at the square. Junior Suites face the handsome stone façades of the Palais-Royal, though not necessarily its gardens. Higher up, selected rooms add balconies and the rooftops begin to appear. At the top, the Eiffel Tower Suite occupies two floors with a terrace overlooking the city's monuments, while the Rooftop Suite, reached by its own lift, offers a panorama stretching from the Palais-Royal towards Sacré-Cœur and the Eiffel Tower. Here the view is not an extra on the room. It is the room.

The hotel itself is careful not to compete. Pierre-Yves Rochon has dressed the eighteenth-century building in pale colours, fine fabrics and quietly comfortable furniture. Downstairs, busts of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Buffon greet arrivals, while an enormous travelling trunk conceals the luggage room beside the wrought-iron staircase. Four men with enormous ideas, and one suitcase for a very long weekend. It is an unexpectedly amusing welcome to such a discreet house.

There is no need to plan much. The Louvre is a few minutes away, the Comédie-Française is round the corner, and the Palais-Royal arcades are lovely in the morning before the city has properly woken up. Come back for lunch at Café 52, where the menu takes its organic ingredients and seasonal produce quite seriously. The terrace on Place de Valois is less concerned with improving your habits. A glass of wine, a long lunch and the small theatre of people crossing the square are reason enough to stay. Downstairs, the Holidermie spa has a whirlpool and a hammam with a ceiling full of stars, the only view in the house that no room upgrade can improve.

The most expensive rooms have the most memorable outlooks, and that is worth remembering before booking the cheaper ones. Nineteen square metres can feel very small at these prices, particularly without a view to compensate. There is no swimming pool or grand lobby, and the restaurant is more agreeable neighbourhood café than destination dining room. The hotel's great luxury is something quieter: being able to walk almost everywhere in central Paris and return to a street that seems to have forgotten the crowds.

Of course, you could spend every waking hour outside. The Louvre alone could occupy a week. But there is something wonderfully contrary about booking a room in the middle of Paris and discovering that one of its greatest pleasures is sitting still. The museums will be there tomorrow. The light on the rooftops won't.