1. Côté Montmartre
Walk in and touch an 1890s heart: floral inlay on the stairs, stained-glass windows behind the lift. On the top landing, a curly bench greets you. Young and quietly smiling, Isabelle leads you to her personality-filled living room, a harmony of family antiques and 20th-century design, and a gift of a view: old Paris crookedly climbing to the Sacré Cœur. Breakfast may be on the flowering balcony, perhaps with fat cat Jules. Your big white (no-smoking) bedroom off the landing is modern and new-bedded in peaceful rooftop seclusion; the shower room a contemporary jewel. Interesting, cultured, cosmopolitan people, too.
• 11 bis rue Jean Baptiste Pigalle, 75009 Paris, +33 (0)1 43 54 33 09. B&B with one double €130-€150. Child's bed available €30.
2. Les Toits de Paris
The attic-level flat, the guest room opposite and their most courteously welcoming young owners (with baby Marius) are all of a lovely piece: modest, quiet, clothed in gentle earthy colours, natural materials and discreet manners. You will feel instantly at ease in this cultured atmosphere. Across the landing, your quiet and intimate room has a super-comfy bed, a convertible sofa and a darling little writing desk beneath the sloping beams while the beautiful bathroom has everything. Walk round "the village", discover its quirky little shops, its restaurants for all tastes and budgets – then head for the riches of central Paris.
• 25 rue de l'Abbé Groult, 75015 Paris, chambrehotesparis.fr, +33 (0)6 60 57 92 05. B&B 1 double €120. Single sofabed available €10.
3. B&B Guénot
A garden! In central Paris! A restful corner and quiet, well-travelled hosts with their 10-year-old son to greet you after a day of cultural excitements. The architect-renovated apartment, a delight of clever design, embraces their private garden. All rooms turn towards the greenery, including your charming compact bedroom with its timber floor, large oil painting and wonderful bathroom so, once through the door that leads off the red-leather sitting room, you are in this intimate space, there to enjoy your wide window on to bird-twitter. A generous continental breakfast – and you're ready for more museum fare.
• 4 passage Guénot, 75011 Paris, +33 (0)1 42 74 23 84. B&B with one double €110
HotelHome Paris 16
A flat in Paris – with a difference. In this quiet street in a classic 1900s building, Laurence combines hotel services with a family-like atmosphere. A glass roof runs across a narrow courtyard lush with fern, jasmine and honeysuckle – perfect for a leisurely breakfast. The tiniest lift in Paris will get your bags up or down to the big rooms, each with a salon and a fabulous customised kitchenette. Charming are the marble fireplaces and antique radiators; modern are the ochre walls, bright rugs and plaid armchairs. Big apartments at the top have two or three bedrooms; smaller rooms on the ground floor have garden views.
• 36 rue George Sand, 75016 Paris, +33 (0)1 45 20 61 38. 17 apartments: five for two-three, 10 for four, two for six. From €180-€340 per night.
Notre Dame district
At the end of the street are the Seine and the glory of Notre Dame. In a grand old building, up a 17th-century staircase, the unaffected tall-windowed rooms look down to peace in a little garden. The low-mezzanined family room has a bathroom off the internal landing where a simple breakfast is laid beside the spiral stair. Upstairs, the second, smaller, room has the bed in the corner and a fresh décor. Madame is polyglot, active and eager to help when she is available, and leaves breakfast ready if she has to go out. She and her daughter appreciate the variety of contact guests bring.
• 75005 Paris (full address on booking), +33 (0)1 43 25 27 20. B&B with one double, one quadruple with separate bathroom from €85-€150.
Montparnasse district
A little house in a quiet alley behind Montparnasse? It's not a dream and Janine, a live-wire cinema journalist who has lived in Canada, welcomes B&B guests to her pretty wood-ceilinged kitchen/diner; she's a night bird so DIY breakfast will be laid for you. The square bedroom across the book-lined hall, a pleasing mix of warm fabrics, honeycomb tiles, old chest and contemporary art, has a good new pine bathroom. In summer rent the whole flat, its richly French sitting room with art, antiques and music, its adorable central patio, superbly rich second bedroom and bathroom.
• 75014 Paris (full address on booking), +33 (0)1 43 27 19 43. B&B with one + one: one double & bathroom. €70 Singles €60. Self-catering: two doubles, two bathrooms €950-€1,000 per week.
Le Clos des Princes
Twenty minutes on the train and you're in Paris. Here, behind wrought-iron gates in an elegant suburb, the French mansion sits in an exuberant town garden of pergolas, box bushes and mature trees. Your kind, attentive hosts – she an ex-English teacher, he with a passion for Prudhomme – give you the poet/philosopher's two-room first-floor suite; he lived here in 1902. Polished floorboards, pretty prints, choice antiques, decorative perfume bottles by a claw-footed tub – all dance to the 19th-century theme. Breakfast unveils gorgeous porcelain and delicious homemade muffins and jams.
• 60 avenue Jean Jaurès, 92290 Châtenay Malabry, +33 (0)1 46 61 94 49. One suite for two with separate bath. Sofabed available for children. B&B €95-€110.
Bonne Nuit Paris
Absolute Paris, 300 years old but not grand, beams galore and modern comforts, independent rooms and a warm family welcome, little streets, friendly markets: this is real privilege. Charming, intelligent Jean-Luc serves his own honey, Denise's jams and fresh baguette in their generous, rambling living room. Guest rooms are on the floor below. Each has a fun-lovingly colourful shower room, a lot of quirk (the last word in creative basins) and an appealing mix of old woodwork and contemporary prints. Simplicity, panache and personality, real attention and service are the hallmarks: you will feel well cared for.
• 63 rue Charlot, 75003 Paris, +33 (0)1 42 71 83 56. B&B with two doubles, one triple from €150. Extra person €75.
Martinn
A gem of a pied-à-terre, right there in the middle of old Paris. The quiet, neat and secluded cobbled courtyard, hidden behind a huge old heavy wooden coach-entrance door, is your introduction to Martine's ground-floor flat. The door opens straight into the small, uncomplicated and attractive bedroom with its purple tafetta bedcover; beyond are the bathroom and the living room, each beautifully decorated. The whole compact place has every gadget you could require and the corner kitchen is equipped for real cooking. The neighbourhood teems with restaurants, brasseries, cafés, fashionable shops and peaceful semi-pedestrian zones.
• 69 rue d'Argout, 75002 Paris, key2paris.com, +33 (0)5 62 96 01 07. Self-catering with one double; one bathroom €650 per week.
Hôtel Prince de Condé
In one of the smallest hotels in the city on one of the most sauntering streets – named after the great river to which it leads – enormous attention to detail. Paris is full of vaulted cellars transformed into breakfast rooms but it is rare to find one done in such style: a red patterned carpet warms the exposed stone and armchairs are clothed in broad stripes and fun patterns. Bedrooms have canopies over beds, cloth-lined walls, an English chair or Napoleon III desk. The large suite gets a jacuzzi tub and swish Italian faucets. Galleries for gazing and people for watching on rue de Seine and the rue Buci nearby.
• 39 rue de Seine, 75006 Paris, +33 (0)1 43 26 71 56. Hotel with 10 twins/doubles, one suite for two from €150-€300. Suite €280. Breakfast €13.
• Guardian and Observer readers can buy a copy of Alastair Sawday's mini guide to Paris for £4.99 (rrp £9.99) plus £2.99 p&p. Visit sawdays.co.uk bookshop using code OBSPARIS when prompted or call 0044 (0)1275 395431 during office hours.
• All photographs taken from Alastair Sawday's Paris - Special Places to Stay
