Is it OK to stay near Gare De L'Est?

Hi

My wife and I are going to Paris during Easter and we are looking for a hotel. I have found a hotel that has gotten decent reviews and it is located near Gare De L%26#39;Est. Is this an OK area to stay in? The train station areas in larger cities can be a bid dodgy but we haven%26#39;t really experience problems in places like Rome, Venice etc. So is Gare De L%26#39;Est an OK area to stay in? We will use the metro to get around and it looks like the train station is also a metro hot spot so it will be easy to get around.

Regards

Gard

gardkarlsen@hotmail.com

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I would say it is less dodgy that gare du Nord, not my favorite place to stay though

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As rightly said, the area near Gare de l%26#39;Est is what areas around train stations are in large cities : socially and ethnically mixed (partly Indian, partly African in that case), with heavy traffic, in a traditionnally working-class part of Paris. This doesn%26#39;t make it a particularly dangerous area, beyond the usual precautions big-city life involves. I would rather be worried by possibilities of noise in your hotel room from street traffic.

The train station itself and the métro station are currently a mess due to heavy remodelling linked to the opening in 2007 of the new Paris-Strasbourg TGV line (high-speed train)

Other posters will say no life is possible beyond Saint-Germain, Latin Quarter and Marais. I would not rule out Gare de l%26#39;est if you can find a quiet room there at a good price. It will give you an idea of an ordinary part of Paris, not too far from the intresting canal Saint-Martin. One good thing with train stations is also that they are transport hub (several metro lines intersect there.