I enjoyed staying at Marie-Dominique’s home. The apartment is fantastic, clean, cozy and quite central. It has all the basic amenities you may need for your stay too. The neighborhood itself is also full of nice cafes and restaurants, little shops and more. It is very close to several public transit options (Metro, Bus and RER). I personally enjoy walking as well and it is a walking distance (15-20 min) to Louvre, Centre Pompidou, Siene river, Opera House and so much more.
One thing to note, it’s a ground floor apartment and if the weather is cold, it’s quite cold in the apartment too. So, check the weather and bring appropriate clothes because the heating system is central, and you can’t regulate the temperature. At the same time if you visit Paris when it’s hot, it’ll be nice and cool for you in the apartment even without aircon or fan.
Marie-Dominique is very nice person, although I’ve never met her as we’ve communicated via Airbnb. She had arranged for someone else to give me the key to her place when I arrived. I think because it was her first time not meeting the tenant, she was more worried than usual. On one hand I can understand her being worried not meeting a person who will be living at her home on the other hand, her projecting the groundless worries kind of stressed me out it was borderline controlling. There was a misunderstanding / miscommunication due to google translate installed in the Airbnb app, as we’ve communicated in our own languages (I in English, her in French and the app auto-translates). Long story short, Marie-Dominique wanted her neighbor to do an in-person “check-out” for me a night before I was leaving. The app translated that the neighbor would come “to spend the night with me, ” it was a rather strange request so I took some time to find a friend that speaks French fluently and would translate the message properly for me to English. As a result, I didn’t respond to her right away as I was waiting to get a correct translation of her message; Marie-Dominique was worried I messed up her place and was quite short with me in her messages thereafter. Nonetheless, I agreed for the neighbor to come and check the place out to ensure everything is okay with the apartment. The neighbor never showed up, to accommodate the “check-out” I had to rearrange my last night in Paris plans to be there during the time we’ve agreed. When no one came, I followed up with the host and her response was “it’s out of my control for neighbor not being there…” all this was quite stressful and unpleasant for me. When I left the apartment in the morning I followed her instructions for leaving the key as she asked, as well as I made sure to take pictures and send them to Marie-Dominique so she is not worried her apartment is left the way it was when I arrived.