Hotel de Fesser

Yes it's true according to yesterday's Sunday Times, and good for them I'd say. They're called 'love hotels' now. I've visited the district in question, not far from the Moulin Rouge, but hadn't been aware of the transformation that was going on or some of the history and famous people who visited the brothels of old, including a previous Prince of Wales who used to frequent one particular establishment to use its 'love chair' which allowed him to service, and be serviced by, several women simultaneously. Herman Goering apparently also visited Le Chabanais, one of the most expensive of its day, it doesn't actually say what Mr Goering's preferences were. 

Part of the article is here:-

Most of the old bars à hostesse — lower-class brothels in the red light district of Pigalle — have been remodelled as cocktail bars, tea rooms and tapas restaurants. At least one has become a health food shop. “The Internet is to blame,” said Ali, the ticket seller at the Museum of Eroticism, a local tourist attraction. “Men meet women on the computer these days. Not in the girlie bars or on the street.”

The Hôtel Amour, once a hôtel de passe for prostitutes and their clients, has become a Parisian landmark with erotically themed bedrooms and weekend brunches served by waitresses selected, according to management, for their looks. Not content with that, the owners have opened Hôtel Grand Amour in a neighbouring district. A statue of Mickey Mouse sporting an outsize phallus stands on the reception desk. The walls on the upper floors are covered in photographs of bottoms and breasts, the carpets with dotted pink phalluses and the female equivalent.

A bit naughty them bringing Mickey Mouse into their designs, I thought.

Anyway on my next trip to Paris, which I keep telling P he must share with me, I shall be investigating in more detail than I could last time, when I had our son with me. I shall be looking for 'spank hotels' or perhaps that should be 'hotels de fesser'.

I'm already practising appropriate phrases 'Où est l'hôtel de fesser le plus proche?' Bet I'll get some funny looks.

Have a good week.

Ronnie

xx