The most important thing to say about Gaspard's apartment is that is just that - Gaspard's apartment. A real, actual, lived-in Parisian apartment in a charming old building with a narrow winding wooden staircase and large windows overlooking a charming courtyard. You know, the kind of place that you could rent via Airbnb in its early years, before savvy entrepreneurs started to hollow out entire city blocks to create sterile "apartments" filled with colour-coordinated pillows featuring inspirational quotes.
It is an apartment with a character of its own, full of strange artifacts and knick-knacks, but not the ones you get from Ikea. It has a fully functional kitchen with lots and lots of useful and not-so-useful utensils and all kinds of practical materials to start your own dinner. It has a fully functional bathroom with all the things you may need to keep yourself and your clothes clean during your stay. It has a nice old-school stereo already tuned to your new favourite radio station - it is several weeks later and I am still listening to it regularly at work. It has a wonderful selection of original paintings from evidently the same artist adorning its walls . Later you may discover, as we did, that their author is not just anyone, but someone with a strong connection to the apartment (we will leave this up to you discover). But most of all - this apartment has books. Lots and lots of books. Books in French, English and many-many other languages. Books on shelves, on top of shelves and even under shelves.
So yes, this is a real Parisian apartment in a real Parisian house and there are even real Parisian neighbours nearby, living their own lives as best they can. Long story short, our family of four (including two children, 12 and 4) thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Gaspard's apartment. On a final note, Gaspard was a gracious host, very considerate and quick to respond to any questions or other missives we sent his way.