A Studio Apartment in Montmartre

Place Émile Goudot, 18th arrondissement

ABOVE: When you enter or leave the building on the Place Émile Goudot, this is the view you'll see.

During a previous stay in Montmartre, we were taken with the Place Émile Goudot, a little cobblestoned square just above the business center of Montmartre. When we discovered from a Google search that Jean-Noël Cassan and his wife Sava offered a two-bedroom vacation apartment overlooking the Place Émile Goudot, we found the location too tempting to resist--and when we learned that the flat wasn't available during our stay, we settled for the next-best thing: the Cassans' studio vacation apartment in the same building.

Renting the studio was easy: We confirmed the dates with M. Cassan, sent a 50% deposit via PayPal, and paid the remaining 50% two weeks before arrival. The price was right: €80 per day or €450 a week during the time of our visit in 2007, which was partly in low season (March) and partly in high season (April).

On the day of our arrival, we simply walked half an hour or so from the Eurostar terminal at the Gare du Nord, carried our bags up to the third floor (or the fourth floor, in American numbering), collected our key from our landlady's apartment one flight up, and moved in.

The studio was about the size of a spacious hotel room, with a bathroom (shower, tiny sink, and toilet) to the right of the entrance and a small but well-equipped open kitchen on the left. Furnishings were sparse but adequate, with a large and comfortable bed, a table and chairs, a coffeetable, and various racks and shelves for storage.

Our studio differed slightly from the architect's rendering on the Web site: A coffeetable had replaced the sofa, and there was no wardrobe next to the bathroom. The only real annoyance was a lack of shades or drapes, until we discovered a set of lightweight curtains that could be hung from hooks over the large windows.

Unlike the Cassans' two-bedroom rental, the studio didn't face the Place Émile Goudot, but its south-facing windows did offer a nice view down the hill all the way to the Seine. The view was especially nice after dark, when we could easily pick out important churches and other landmarks all the way to the Left Bank.

The neighborhood was perfect: There was a café-bar next door to our apartment building, a bakery was on the corner, and several more bakeries were within a 3- or 4-minute walk (including Le Grenier à Pain at 38 rue des Abbesses, which has the best croissants that we've found in Paris).

Just around the corner was the grocery store from the movie Amélie, which faced a stairway leading down to a pleasant little park and the square by the Abbesses Métro station. (Tip: The apartment includes free Wi-Fi, but if you don't bring your laptop, look for the tiny Internet shop on the east side of the Place des Abbesses.)

We spent nearly two weeks in the Cassans' studio holiday apartment, and while we might have preferred more space, the value was hard to beat and the location was wonderful.

If you want to stay in Montmartre for several days or longer, don't require hotel services or air conditioning, and don't mind a few small inconveniences such as a tiny bathroom sink and no room-darkening drapes or shades, the Cassans' studio is worth considering. For more information, see:

Studio Apartment's Web page at VRBO

Abbesses Métro station photo copyright © Didier Faucher.

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