From the desk at Pastis, look out onto the Marais, one of Paris's trendiest neighborhoods.

UpTake Blogger Gundrun Enger recently covered the three main benefits of renting an apartment rather than staying in a hotel when traveling:

• you can pretend you’re a local
• it can be less expensive
• more spaces, less stress

I experienced all of those benefits—and more–when my wife and I rented Pastis, a studio flat in the heart of The Marais, on our honeymoon.

Located on Rue des Rosiers in the fourth arrondissement, Pastis is in the heart of Paris’s trendy neighborhood. The studio apartment is just a short walk to the Left Bank, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Musee Picasso, and a slew of trendy restaurants, bars, and cafes. Paris’s Metro is super convenient, but during our weeklong stay at Pastis, we rarely made use of it.

Pretend to be a local

Every morning I walked out the front door  on to Rue des Rosiers to buy pain au chocolats and other pastries from a local bakery to bring back to the apartment, with no lobby full of English-speaking tourists to ruin the illusion.

Save money on your next trip to Paris by making use of the kitchen in an apartment rental.

It can be less expensive

In addition to saving about 30 percent just on the cost of the rental, we saved more money by eating in one night and buying groceries to keep in the apartment’s refrigerator. The apartment’s washer/dryer meant needing to pack fewer clothes and avoiding the airline’s excessive baggage costs.

More space, less stress

As usually is the case on a honeymoon, there were just two of us staying at Pastis. But after staying in hotel rooms in Spain during the first week of our honeymoon, it was great to be able to spread out our stuff on week two.

Pastis
44 Rue des Rosiers
75004 Paris
France

(Photos: Courtesy of Paris Hideaways)

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