Hôtel Bel Ami

"If you're keen to try on that French intellectual look, take Hôtel Bel Ami for a spin the next time you're staying in the City of Light. The hotel, tucked away on a tiny side street in the bookish Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, sits on the lower-key Left Bank—the Rive Gauche, as they say—and was formerly a 19th-century printing press where the first copy of Guy de Maupassant's novel, Bel Ami was printed (hence the name). Dip in and out of a few of the famed nearby cafés, including Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore, before heading to your bright, minimalist-chic room, and don't forget to at least peek in at Bel Ami Café—stocked with heavy-hitting art books, the spot also rolls video screenings of Parisian life that'll really make you feel like a local."