My mother and I stayed at the Hotel de L’Europe in Poitiers for four nights in mid-May.

We loved the hotel. And my mother has already told me that she wants to stay here when she visits me in Poitiers this winter. The reception desk was friendly (though my mother thinks they were friendlier to me since I actually attempted French the entire time). I exchanged a few emails with the reception staff before our arrival and they were very prompt in their reply.

We stayed in a room with two twin beds and it was perfect. It contained a desk, chair, small closet, and television with a two English channels (BBC and CNN), a random German shopping network channel, at least one Spanish channel, and of course, there were multiple French channels. Our room was on the top floor, which I thought would be a problem for my mother (who is in her 60s), but it worked out fine. I carried her suitcase up and we just took our time on the stairs at the end of the day. The room has a nice bathroom with a normal shower (not the typical European-style shower). For some reason, we couldn’t figure out how to avoid wetting the entire floor even when the shower doors were closed. The bathroom was a reasonable sized, though the shower might be a tight fit for some.

There were two large "french door"-styled windows which gave us a nice view of the other buildings and general condensed cityscape of centre ville. There was a retractable metal window shade, which was helpful because the windows are adorned with sheer white curtains and it was really bright in the morning.

The only bad thing is that the walls are a bit thin—or maybe the door locks are just really loud. This is because the old-fashion keys make a lot of noise to unlock the doors (and most people, including me, tend to struggle to open the door with the key). But my mother and I were tired most nights after a full day of sightseeing so that it wasn’t too big of a deal!

In the lobby, there is a lounge room which contains a computer to give guests internet access. I only had to wait once to use the computer. From the lounge, you can check out the hotel's little garden area.

Breakfast is offered but given that I was on a tight budget, I opted to grab a croissant near Hotel de Ville.

The Hotel is ideally situated three blocks from Hotel de Ville and surrounded by restaurants. It is about a 15 minute walk to the train station from the hotel, and about a 5 minute walk to the 8 à Huit if you want to stock up on a few groceries (I went there every morning to supplement my croissant-focused breakfast). It is no more than a 10 minute walk to Notre Dame.

My mother and I loved visiting Poitiers. I will be studying French at the university this fall and it is a very pretty city, with lots of history, tasty food, and nice people—definitely a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of Paris (where we stayed before traveling to Poitiers).