Molitor

The view that matters at Molitor is not of Paris. It is of a swimming pool. A proper, forty-six-metre outdoor pool, framed by canary-yellow walls, white balconies and rows of blue cabin doors. From the bedrooms above, you can watch people doing lengths while you consider whether to have breakfast first. It is an odd pleasure to arrive in Paris and find the main attraction already outside your window.

The water was here long before the hotel. In 1929, architect Lucien Pollet opened a bathing complex that looked rather like an ocean liner with its middle removed. Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic swimming champion and not yet Tarzan, worked as a lifeguard that first summer. Then, in July 1946, Louis Réard unveiled a swimsuit so scant that professional models reportedly refused to wear it. Micheline Bernardini, a dancer from the Casino de Paris, took their place. Réard named his creation after Bikini Atoll, where the Americans had just tested an atomic bomb. The new swimsuit travelled considerably farther than most people who came to swim.

Molitor had another, less respectable life after closing in 1989. Graffiti artists covered its drained pools and changing cabins, and parties filled the derelict building. When the complex returned in 2014, much of the decaying structure had been demolished and rebuilt; only the rotunda and original entrance survived. This is not quite the 1929 Art Deco masterpiece preserved in aspic. The yellow walls and blue doors are a remarkably faithful reconstruction, and some of the artists who once painted here illegally were invited back. The former changing cabins around the indoor pool now make a wonderfully eccentric little gallery. Ask to see them before you leave.

The 124 bedrooms, designed by Jean-Philippe Nuel, are quieter than all this history suggests. Pale furnishings and simple lines give your eyes a rest from the colours outside. More importantly, the rooms are not interchangeable. A twenty-two-square-metre Superior might look across the city rather than down to the pool. A twenty-six-square-metre Deluxe guarantees the pool view and is arguably the better choice: at Molitor, the outlook is much of what you came for. A thirty-square-metre Executive with an Art Deco porthole offers a more unusual way to watch the swimmers; the thirty-five-square-metre Executive Terrace trades that view for eighty square metres of private outdoor space above Paris. Read the descriptions carefully before paying for an upgrade.

Then go downstairs and get wet. The outdoor pool is heated, and there is a thirty-three-metre indoor pool too, with enough space to swim seriously. Hotel guests are guaranteed access to at least one pool throughout the year, although the facilities are shared with members of Molitor's private sports club. The 1,700-square-metre Clarins spa and its treatments are there if you prefer someone else to do the work. But the nicest part of the day may be the interval between swims: a robe, a book and no particular reason to hurry anywhere.

You can spend much of that day without leaving. The little clubhouse restaurant, 1929, serves hotel guests and members beside the water; the main restaurant has a view of the outdoor pool. In summer, the rooftop bar and restaurant add a very different perspective, with the Eiffel Tower beyond the neighbourhood. It is seasonal, not something to rely on during an October visit. Outside the gates are Roland-Garros, the Parc des Princes and the Bois de Boulogne. Excellent if you have come for tennis, football or a walk; rather less convenient for spontaneous evenings in Saint-Germain. Central Paris requires a deliberate journey.

And there is a price to this version of freedom. Molitor was once a public pool. Today the swimmers are mainly hotel guests, club members and people who have arranged spa access. The rebuilt building may look wonderfully familiar, but the social arrangement is different. You are paying a great deal for the pleasure of doing almost nothing. Still, if your idea of a Paris holiday includes a morning when you don't feel obliged to see Paris at all, Molitor makes a surprisingly persuasive case. Pack a swimsuit.