Published by Lyn on 17 March 2025
At Hotel de La Porte Dorée in Paris, staff won't blink an eyelid if you drag your bike and panniers through the door.
Hotel de La Porte Dorée
273, avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris (Île-de-France)
View map
+33 (0)1 43 07 56 97 / contact@hoteldelaportedoree.com
Official website
Freewheeling France readers get 10% off when using the code FREEWHEELINGPARIS on the official site
UPDATE – March 17, 2025:
It's been eight years since I stayed at the excellent, bike-friendly Hotel de la Porte Dorée in Paris and wrote the 2017 review that you can find further below.
I've stayed at a lot of hotels in my 17 years (so far) in France – a lot of hotels – but Hotel de la Porte Dorée remains in my top 10. And it is in my top 5 if I'm travelling with a bike – 150%.
I recently returned to the hotel on a flying visit to the French capital and – given that I am constantly recommending it to people – I thought I'd update you all on how the hotel has changed in the eight years since I last visited.
The answer is lots – and not much at all.
Sure, the aesthetics have changed – the rooms have all had makeovers, but they are still as cosy as ever, making remarkable use of the small spaces that Parisian buildings can sometimes throw up. The elevator is a squeeze and the toilet in our room was tiny, but the room and the actual bathroom more than compensated.
Like the attention to detail, the hotel's eco credentials remain. Everything – and I mean everything – is planned to be as green as possible (I'm not just talking about stickers on a wall to remind you to reuse your towel like at most hotels). No plastic glasses or cups. Minimal waste at breakfast. Nearly everything is recycled or recyclable.
And like the green credentials, the intimacy and the friendly welcome from my first visit also remain. And this is especially the case for cyclists. Tired, weary, excited, hungry, dirty, sweaty cyclists – we are all welcome here.
Jérôme, who helps manage the hotel with the owner Christina, tells me we are in fact some of their favourite guests and they continue to go that extra mile to roll out the red carpet for us.
The hotel has added additional security and also put a roof on its little outdoor courtyard since I last visited, providing additional overnight secure storage for bikes, while staff still happily allow cyclists to fill the basement with bike bags and boxes, storing them there for us until we return from our adventures.
The reception area now also has a coffee machine and a snack area that greets cyclists on arrival (and supplies us with treats as we depart). The breakfast is still big, bold and offers a feast large enough to power mile after mile in the saddle.
Whether you're starting your bike journey in Paris or ending it there, or maybe just passing through on the Euro Velo 3, Hotel de la Porte Dorée is a very hard act to beat.
Try to book ahead, especially in summer and particularly if you are travelling in a group of cyclists. Jérôme was telling me that they often get large groups of guests riding London-Paris, Paris-Nice, Paris-Brest-Paris and the like, and a little extra notice means he can make sure you get the support you need upon arrival.
And with that, here is my original review from all those years ago...
Read my original review from 2017:
It's now been three days since I stayed at Hotel de La Porte Dorée and I'm no less excited about it (and no less excited about the prospect of going back).
In Paris – a city drowning in hotels – finding one that is super bike-friendly can be a challenge. Mostly this is because space is so limited in the city's buildings, but it's also because guests are so transient and there are so many visitors that concentrating on cyclists isn't seen as a priority. Which, frankly, astounds me when so many cyclists pass through Paris to/from Charles de Gaulle, or via Eurostar, or arrive on the Avenue Verte from London, or on EV3, or head off on the Velosccenie to Mont St Michel. So many of us start or end – sometimes both – our journeys in the French capital.
So when Christina, the owner of Hotel de La Porte Dorée, emailed to say she wanted to see more cyclists rolling up to her door in the 12th arrondissement, I just had to go and check it out.
5 things we liked
1. The cyclist-owners.
What I found was no marketing gimmick. Christina – a native of California – and her French husband Laurent are both cyclists. They ride to work each day having dropped their three mini-cyclists off at school. What's more, Laurent's mum – who lives in the Loire – also rides. In fact, it was after she returned from one of her regular bike tours with reports of foreign cyclists unable to find accommodation in Paris for themselves AND their bikes that Christina and Laurent swung into action. The basement was earmarked for bike storage, and Christina went out on the hunt for hotel bikes. She bought a handful of Kalkhoff hybrid town bikes for guests to hire, figuring they wouldn't want to leave their treasured touring steads locked up outside the Louvre. And their enthusiasm has worn off, with Yassine on reception the latest convert to cycling to work. Here's Christina, who took me for a ride on one of the hotel bikes.
2. Bike storage.
Bikes come first. That means you have three options. 1) You can store your bike in your room – the hotel lift is quite small, so you just need to carry it up the stairs. A few of the rooms have private balconies, so you can also request one of these for your bike. 2) You can store your bike in the basement store room. It's dedicated, private and either Christina or the hotel receptionist will be guarding the only key. 3) You can use the hotel's gated courtyard during the day if you're just popping in and out and don't fancy taking your bike up to your room or down to the basement.
But it gets better. If you're starting or ending your cycling trip in Paris and need somewhere to stash your bike box, then Christina will store it for you until you get back. She says she's previously stored bicycles for weeks on end while cyclists have gone off to explore the city or other areas of France on their own.
3. Location.
Christina took me out for a pootle through the nearby Bois de Vincennes (above). Just magic. The hotel is so close to the park it's just a bit silly. It's also on the Metro line to the Eiffel Tower, and very handy for trains into Gare de Paris Bercy and Paris Gare de Lyon (from Burgundy and Lyon Part Dieu). The main tourist sites are around half an hour by bike and you also benefit from slightly cheaper rates, being a bit further away from the very centre of the city.
4. Eco-friendly.
The hotel is an accredited Green Key hotel. Everything that's done here is done with an eye on the environment – from water usage and recycling to using sustainable produce in the kitchen and offering fair-trade breakfasts, the idea is to play a small but vital role in preserving the world around us. Encouraging guests to see Paris by bike plays no small role in the hotel's green policy.
5. Everything else.
Let's see: there's the delicious breakfast of cereals and breads, yoghurts and a never-ending supply of eggs (special dietary requests can be catered for); there's the free wifi; there's the book-sized guest information about everything and anything to do in the area; there's the beautiful shower; there's the kettle in the room (another luxury for a mid-range Paris hotel); there's the excellent, family policy that welcomes kids (Christina and Laurent have three bilingual cyclists of their own); there's the staircase bathed in books in multiple languages; there's the friendly staff. I could go on, but you probably get the picture.
When Christina and Laurent bought this place over a decade ago, it was a rundown two-star hotel with a questionable clientele (yes, that kind – just without the red lights). With a lot of love and hard work, they've turned it into a fashionable, affordable, modern three-star hotel with sparkling environmental credentials. With just over 40 rooms, it's great for cycling groups or solo riders.
In short, if you're a cyclist and you're after a reliable, stylish, clean, mid-range hotel in Paris whose staff won't blink an eyelid if you drag your bike and panniers through the door, then this is the one for you.
Hotel de La Porte Dorée
273, avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris (Île-de-France)
+33 (0)1 43 07 56 97 / contact@hoteldelaportedoree.com
Official website
Use the code FREEWHEELINGPARIS on the official site for a 10% discount.
Other hotels in Paris + bike hire
