We stayed at Hélène’s apartment for five nights. She was going to be out of town when we arrived, so she made arrangements for a friend to bring the key to us on the day we showed up, which worked fine.

One of the best things about Hélène’s apartment was how central it was. It’s located in the second arrondissement with a Metro stop close by, which made it very easy to get anywhere we wanted to go. We liked the area felt like a neighborhood frequented by a lot of locals, rather than an area overrun with tourists. There were plenty of restaurants and shops within walking distance, which was exactly what we wanted.

With so much nightlife in the area, it was a bit noisy at night (as late as two or three in the morning), but we saw that as a tradeoff of being so close to everything. We would have loved to leave some of the windows open at night, but the noise would have made it too difficult to sleep. Weekday nights were definitely quieter though.

As one or two other reviews mention, you have to go through the first bedroom to get to the second bedroom. Since we were staying there with our 4-year-old daughter, this wasn’t really an issue for us, but it’s not ideal if you require more privacy. Side note: We actually wished we’d slept in the second bedroom ourselves and given the larger bedroom to our daughter, because we thought the bed in the smaller room was much more comfortable than the one in the main bedroom. (That’s probably a matter of personal preference though.)

The bigger bedroom had a clothes rack with a few hangers and a hanging shelf, but it would have been nice to have a little more room to store our clothes since we were there for five nights. As another reviewer noted, a shower curtain in the bathroom would also be helpful (and make it easier to not get the entire room wet when showering with the telephone shower head).

If you plan to eat in much, note that there’s no dining table/kitchen table in Hélène’s apartment. We ate out most of the time we were there, but the one time we did eat in, it was a bit awkward to sit around the low table in the living room.

We liked that there was a washing machine in the apartment, but we didn't notice the clothes drying rack, which was under the couch in the living room, before we did a load of laundry.

All in all, we’d recommend Hélène’s apartment and the surrounding neighborhood for anyone looking for a central place to stay in Paris.