Three minutes from Voltaire métro, fifteen from Bastille
There are not many addresses in central Paris where you walk out the front door and stand three minutes from a métro that takes you to République, Opéra and the grands magasins without changing trains. Hôtel Richard sits on Rue Richard Lenoir between Boulevard Voltaire and Place Léon-Blum, in the workaday 11th arrondissement that the 11ème-locals actually live in. Place de la Bastille is fifteen minutes' walk south, Père-Lachaise Cemetery fifteen minutes east, and Le Marais opens up the moment you cross the square. Restaurants line the same block: Soumsoum 11, Sushi SoBa, Carmel Delice, and the natural-wine bistros of rue Paul Bert wait around the corner.
The building is an older Parisian walk-up of around 35 rooms across four-plus floors. There is no lift. The staircase is narrow and winds. None of that is a secret on this page or in the guest reviews, and yet the property stays well-reviewed, with its location the detail guests single out most, because the trade is honest. You get a clean, safe, walkable room in the densest, most lived-in district in Europe.
Eight room types, from a 9 m² shared-bathroom single to a 20 m² family Quintuple
The room palette runs further than most budget Paris hotels. A 9 m² Single Room with Shared Bathroom is the entry category. A Double Room with Private Bathroom adds a fridge, microwave, kettle and desk. Quadruple and Quintuple rooms span 20 m² with private bathrooms for groups of four and five. Every room has free Wi-Fi, heating, tile or marble flooring, a private entrance, ironing facilities and a tea-and-coffee station.
Read the room titles carefully before booking: Hôtel Richard runs eight Booking categories and the bathroom set-up varies by name. "Shared Bathroom" means the bath and toilet are on the landing. "Double Room with external toilet" means the shower is in the room but the toilet is shared. One Quintuple is sold as "Private Bathroom" although the toilet itself is shared, past guests have noticed and flagged the contradiction; the room detail page on Booking shows it clearly if you look. We have surfaced it further down the page.
Cash at the desk, multilingual at the door, family-sized inside
Two practical details set the rhythm of a stay at Hôtel Richard. The first: the official Booking-listed payment method is cash. You can secure a room with a card online, but bring euros for any on-arrival charge at the desk. The second: reception is staffed by a small multilingual team, French, English, Spanish, and the front desk runs late, with guest reports of luggage held, kettles replaced on request and after-hours buzz-ins when the main door is closed. Daily housekeeping is offered though guests sometimes describe it as light-touch; bring toiletries beyond hand soap.
Family rooms come with a small fridge and microwave in the room. The Quadruple and the Double-with-private-bathroom both have one, useful when you have a small child and a 23:00 train arrival, or want to break a Paris dining streak with a supermarket dinner from the Auchan on Boulevard Voltaire. It is a small touch, and it costs nothing extra. It is also the kind of thing the more expensive 3-star hotels across the road do not bother with.
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Interesting Points About Hôtel Richard
- Trading entity BEN'HOTEL SARL (SIREN 419302617) has operated the hotel under Georges Benchimol's gérance since 1 July 1998, close to three decades of single-family ownership at this address.
- The 11th arrondissement is the densest urban district in Europe: 38,851 inhabitants per square kilometre across 144,292 residents in the 2020 INSEE census, denser than central Tokyo or Manhattan.
- Private parking arranged through the hotel costs €35 a day, roughly 40 percent below the €60 average for on-street meters in central Paris, a small but real saving on a multi-night stay.
- The Coulée verte René-Dumont, 18 minutes' walk south, is the world's first elevated urban park, inaugurated in 1993, sixteen years before New York's High Line opened in 2009.
Rooms & Accommodation at Hôtel Richard
Single Room with Shared Bathroom
Up to 1 guest · Single · 9 m²
The cheapest room at Hôtel Richard, a 9 m² single bed with a desk, kettle and Wi-Fi. The bath, shower and toilet are shared with the rest of the floor. Smart for solo travellers on the tightest budget who plan to be out exploring all day.
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Double Room with Shared Bathroom
Up to 2 guests · Double · 15 m²
A 15 m² double with one double bed, desk and a seating corner, and a shared bath and toilet down the hall. The cheapest way for two adults to sleep in central Paris within fifteen minutes of Bastille.
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Double Room with external toilet
Up to 2 guests · Double · 15 m²
An intermediate category: a 15 m² double room with a private bath or shower inside the room, but the toilet itself is shared with the rest of the floor. Useful when you want to wake up to your own shower but don't need an en-suite WC.
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Single Room with Private Bathroom
Up to 1 guest · Single · 9 m²
Solo and self-contained: a 9 m² single whose en-suite comes with a hairdryer, toilet paper and a choice of bath or shower. The cheapest private-bathroom option in the building, with a desk, kettle, free Wi-Fi and a private entrance. Useful when shared facilities aren't your preference but a tight room footprint is fine for a few nights out exploring Paris.
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Double Room with Private Bathroom
Up to 2 guests · Double · 15 m²
The mid-range workhorse: 15 m², private bathroom with toilet and bath or shower, plus a small fridge and microwave that turn the room into a half self-catering unit. A useful pick if you have a small child or want a supermarket dinner option after late arrivals.
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Quadruple Room with Private Bathroom
Up to 4 guests · Family · 20 m²
A 20 m² family room for four with its own bathroom, kitchen alcove (fridge, microwave, kettle) and seating area. Split four ways, it lands in central-Paris budget territory that is hard to undercut without leaving the city.
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Quintuple Room with Private Bathroom
Up to 5 guests · Family · 20 m²
The same 20 m² footprint configured for five, bath or shower in the room, toilet shared with the floor. Listed on the booking platform as “Private Bathroom” but the toilet itself is shared; we surface that contradiction below so nobody is surprised at check-in.
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Deluxe Quintuple Room with Private Bathroom
Up to 5 guests · Family · 20 m²
A 20 m² Quintuple configured with a private bath or shower, towels included, and the kitchen alcove from the standard family rooms, fridge, microwave, kettle, desk, seating area. Sleeps five and adds a slightly more generous bathroom than the standard Quintuple. Price varies through the year, so check the booking page for current rates by date.
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Best Suited For
- Solo travellers and couples who want the lowest possible Paris bedroom within 15 minutes' walk of Bastille
- Families of three to five sharing one room (the Quadruple and Quintuple sleep four to five)
- Inter-railers, students and weekenders who plan to be out all day
- Anyone who values a standout location and a multilingual reception over an in-room minibar
Worth Considering Alternatives If
- You need a lift: the building is a four-plus-floor walk-up with a narrow winding staircase and no elevator
- You're paying with a card at the property: Hôtel Richard's official Booking payment method is cash
- You want a hotel restaurant, bar, gym, pool or breakfast service: none are on site (cafés on the same block fill in)
- You're sensitive to noise: walls are thin and several guests recommend earplugs
Amenities & facilities
In every room
- Free Wi-Fi
- Heating
- Tile or marble floor
- Desk
- Seating area
- Private entrance
- Ironing facilities
- Tea/coffee maker
- Electric kettle
- Socket near the bed
- Linen and towels
In family rooms
- Refrigerator
- Microwave
Bathroom
- Hairdryer
- Toilet paper (private-bathroom rooms)
- Shared bathrooms in some categories
Services
- Multilingual reception (English, French, Spanish)
- Late check-in by arrangement (after 23:30 phone the hotel)
- Luggage storage
- Tour and ticket assistance
- Daily housekeeping
- Not available: Lift / elevator
- Not available: Restaurant on site
- Not available: On-site breakfast service
Parking & transport
- Private parking nearby (€35 per day, reservation required)
- Voltaire métro 3 min walk · Charonne métro 4 min walk
- Nation (Lines 1/2/6/9 + RER A) 15 min walk
- Not available: Free parking
Policies
- Cash payment at the desk
- Minimum check-in age 18
- Not available: Pets
- Not available: Smoking
- Not available: Parties / events
- Not available: Cots and extra beds
Location & getting around
Hôtel Richard sits inside the Roquette / Saint-Ambroise quarter of the 11th arrondissement, on Rue Richard Lenoir between Boulevard Voltaire and Place Léon-Blum. Voltaire métro on Line 9 is 300 yards north, a three-minute walk through a working residential street lined with boulangeries, neo-bistros and the kind of old-school wine merchants that have been there long enough to have a pavement chalkboard older than the barman.
South of the property, fifteen minutes on foot takes you to Place de la Bastille and the launch pad for Paris's biggest concentration of late-opening bars. East, fifteen minutes through the quieter back streets, brings you to the gates of Père-Lachaise, the world's most-visited cemetery with the graves of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf and Chopin. North-west, twelve minutes, the Place des Vosges anchors Le Marais. Everything in this triangle is walkable.
For dinner, walk one block to Origini for hand-rolled pasta (a neighbourhood favourite for fresh Italian cooking), or two blocks to Bistrot Beyrouth for Lebanese mezze. For breakfast pastries, the boulangerie at the foot of the building handles croissants and baguettes from dawn, cheaper and fresher than any hotel breakfast buffet you would buy. For supplies, the Auchan on Boulevard Voltaire is a four-minute walk and stocks the same Brie, Beaujolais and bag of cherries that the Carrefour at Châtelet sells for thirty percent more.
- Voltaire Métro Station (Line 9), 3 min walk: Direct, change-free métro to République, Opéra and the grands magasins of Boulevard Haussmann.
- Place de la Bastille, 15 min walk: July Column, Bastille Opera and the highest density of late-opening bars in Paris.
- Père-Lachaise Cemetery, 15–18 min walk: The world's most-visited cemetery, 3.5 million visitors a year, free entry, opens 08:00 weekdays.
- Place des Vosges, 18 min walk: Paris's oldest planned square, built by Henri IV between 1605 and 1612, anchoring Le Marais.
- Coulée verte René-Dumont, 18 min walk: The world's first elevated urban park (1993), sixteen years before New York's High Line.
- Pompidou Centre, 8 min on Métro Line 9: The Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers museum of modern art with its inside-out coloured pipework.
- Louvre Museum, 20 min by métro: Line 9 to Franklin D. Roosevelt or Line 1 from Bastille. 8.7 million visitors in 2024, pre-book a timed slot.
- Eiffel Tower, 30 min by métro: Line 9 to Trocadéro for the photo, then walk across Pont d'Iéna.
Getting to Key Locations
Photo: Guillaume Flament (Wikimedia user Mododie), CC BY-SA 4.0
Place de la Bastille
15 min walk
Fifteen minutes' walk south of Hôtel Richard, where the medieval prison stormed on 14 July 1789 once stood. Today the square is anchored by the bronze July Column and the curved glass façade of the Opéra Bastille, with Métro Lines 1, 5 and 8 all converging underneath.
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Photo: Jami430, CC BY-SA 4.0
Père-Lachaise Cemetery
18 min walk
Fifteen to eighteen minutes' walk east, the largest cemetery in central Paris and the most-visited in the world, opened 1804 and now the resting place of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf and Frédéric Chopin. Entry is free, gates open 08:00 weekdays.
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Photo: Des Racines et des Ailes (France Télévisions / France 3), via YouTube channel DRDAfrancetv, CC BY 3.0
Place des Vosges & Le Marais
18 min walk
Eighteen minutes' walk north-west through the back streets of the 11th, the oldest planned square in Paris, built by Henri IV between 1605 and 1612, anchors the Marais district with its symmetrical red-brick arcades and a central garden that fills with locals every weekend.
View on MapHow to get to Hôtel Richard
- Arrive at Gare du Nord: From any Eurostar, Thalys or Intercity arrival, follow the green Métro signs down to the métro level.
- Take Métro Line 5 (direction Place d'Italie): Ride three stops to Bastille, about six minutes underground.
- Change to Métro Line 9 (direction Mairie de Montreuil): Cross the Bastille platform to Line 9. Ride one stop to Voltaire, three minutes.
- Take exit 3, Rue Richard-Lenoir: Surface at the corner of Boulevard Voltaire and Rue Richard-Lenoir.
- Walk to number 35: Walk three minutes straight down Rue Richard-Lenoir. Hôtel Richard is on the right at no. 35. Total journey from Gare du Nord: about twenty minutes.
Paris in twenty minutes
The 11th arrondissement is the densest urban district in Europe, 38,851 inhabitants per square kilometre, and one of the few central Paris neighbourhoods where Parisians still outnumber tourists on a Friday evening. The Roquette quarter around Hôtel Richard is where the city's natural-wine bars, third-wave coffee, neo-bistros and old-school boulangeries all run on top of each other.
The best time to visit is late spring (April to June) and early autumn (September to October), when temperatures sit between 12 and 22 degrees, terraces are open and queues at the major sights have not yet hit summer peak. August and December are the cheapest months in Paris's budget-hotel pricing, terrace coverage drops as Parisians leave town in August, and Christmas markets close mid-December.
If you only have one day: walk to Bastille for coffee at La Bague de Kenza, take Line 9 west to the Pompidou, walk south through Le Marais to Place des Vosges, lunch in the arcades, métro back to Père-Lachaise for the late afternoon, and end at one of the wine bars on rue Paul Bert.
Paris in twenty minutes, a city tour
A 20-minute budget travel guide to Paris that covers the métro, the museums, the markets and the things to spend on first if your time is tight. Filmed in 2025, city-wide rather than specific to Hôtel Richard.
What 5,092 guests say about Hôtel Richard
Scores and review counts are aggregated from verified guest bookings on major travel platforms.
Good
A polarised, honest budget hotel where guests who arrive with realistic expectations leave satisfied and guests expecting hotel-grade comfort leave disappointed. Staff and location are what guests praise hardest, while the facilities are the weakest part of the stay, exactly the profile of a “good location for the price” central-Paris bedroom.
Very nice location, incredibly close to the metro, with plenty of restaurants and eateries within a few minutes' walk. Check-in and check-out were both seamless.
Convenient location with safe, easy métro access. The room was fine for a few nights, though I would have appreciated more toiletries beyond hand soap.
Good location and the room stayed quiet, perfect for two or three nights. It's small but at this price you would not expect anything else.
For the price, a genuinely good hotel. The staff were helpful, I asked for a kettle to be swapped because of a smell, and they replaced it within minutes. The room was clean.
Clean and fair value for what it cost. We felt safe and at ease, and since we were out sightseeing most of the day the small bathroom and four flights of stairs didn't bother us.
Close to Gare du Nord and €50 a night in central Paris is hard to argue with. Bring earplugs, light sleepers will hear the neighbours.
The price reflected what I got, the room itself was fine, close to a good métro line and multiple bus routes. The internet was out the week of my stay, which dented the score.
The small bathroom inside the room was very good. Only thing I missed was a lift.
Good to Know Before You Book
Cash payment at the desk
Hôtel Richard's official Booking-listed payment method is cash. You can secure a room online with a card, but bring euros for any on-arrival charge at reception.
No lift across four-plus floors
The building is an older Parisian walk-up with a narrow, winding staircase and no elevator. Pack light, choose a soft bag over a hard case, and ask reception for a lower floor at booking if you have heavy luggage or limited mobility.
Late check-in by phone
Check-in runs from 16:00 to midnight. If you arrive after 23:30 and the main door is closed, ring +33 1 43 79 39 98, the front desk will buzz you in.
Read the room title carefully
Eight Booking categories exist and the bathroom set-up varies: “Shared Bathroom”, “External Toilet”, “Private Bathroom”, and one Quintuple where the bath or shower is private but the toilet is shared with the floor. Worth a second look on the booking page.
Photos of Hôtel Richard
Frequently asked questions
Hôtel Richard is at 35 Rue Richard Lenoir, between Boulevard Voltaire and Place Léon-Blum in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. The closest métro is Voltaire on Line 9, about a three-minute walk north. Charonne, also on Line 9, is four minutes south.
From Charles de Gaulle, take RER B southbound to Châtelet–Les Halles, change to Métro Line 1 eastbound to Bastille, then Line 9 east to Voltaire, about 1 hour 10 minutes. From Orly, the Orlybus to Denfert-Rochereau plus Line 6 to Nation and Line 9 westbound one stop runs roughly 55 minutes. From Gare du Nord, take Line 5 to Bastille and change to Line 9 east, about 20 minutes door to door.
No, the building is a four-plus-floor walk-up with a narrow staircase and no elevator. The hotel is not adapted for wheelchair access. Pack light and request a lower floor when booking if you have heavy luggage or limited mobility.
The two share the same 15 m² footprint and bed configuration. The Shared Bathroom version places the bath, shower and toilet on the landing, used by other rooms on the floor. The Private Bathroom version has a toilet and bath or shower inside the room, with a hairdryer and toilet paper provided, and adds a small fridge and microwave. The exact price difference depends on the room type and your dates, and the current price is shown before you confirm.
There is no on-site parking, but the hotel can arrange a private space at a nearby car park for €35 per day, reservation required at booking. On-street meter parking in central Paris typically runs about €60 a day, so the arranged spot is roughly forty percent cheaper.
Check-in runs from 16:00 to midnight; check-out is until 12:00. Late check-in is possible by arrangement, if you arrive after 23:30 and the main door is closed, ring +33 1 43 79 39 98 and reception will buzz you in. Early or late check-in cannot be guaranteed and may carry a charge.
Pets are not allowed. Cash is the official payment method at the desk, you can secure a room online with a card on the booking platform, but bring euros for any on-arrival charge. Children of any age are welcome though those 18 and over are charged as adults; cots and extra beds are not available.
Père-Lachaise Cemetery is fifteen to eighteen minutes' walk east. The Pompidou Centre is eight minutes on Line 9, the Louvre about twenty minutes by métro via Line 9 or Line 1 from Bastille. The Eiffel Tower is roughly thirty minutes, Line 9 to Trocadéro, then a walk across Pont d'Iéna.
Other great stays in Paris
Au Royal Mad
A second budget hotel in the 11th arrondissement, also near Voltaire métro, two streets away if Hôtel Richard is sold out on your dates.
Hotel Berkeley
A 3-star Left-Bank alternative for travellers who want a similar price band closer to Montparnasse.
Hotel Savoy
Another budget hotel on a quieter Montparnasse street with shared-bathroom singles in the same price tier.
Chez Mia Paris
A third budget option in the same 11th arrondissement, up at the top of Rue de la Roquette facing Père-Lachaise. Around ten rooms, a mix of private and shared bathrooms, no lift and no breakfast, so read the room name carefully before you book.
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