Where to Stay at the Trocadéro

What staying at the Trocadéro is like

Place du Trocadéro, officially place du Trocadéro-et-du-11-Novembre, is a large round square in the 16th arrondissement, on the hill of Chaillot across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The Palais de Chaillot, built for the 1937 international exhibition, stands between the square and the river. Its two curved wings frame an open terrace, the parvis des Droits-de-l'Homme, which looks straight across the river at the tower.

The palace holds the Musée de l'Homme, a museum of anthropology, and the Musée national de la Marine, the national naval museum, in its west wing. The Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, an architecture museum, is in the east wing, and the Théâtre national de Chaillot is under the terrace. Below the palace, the Trocadéro gardens step down to the Seine and the Pont d'Iéna. The Aquarium de Paris is beside the gardens, and the Musée Guimet, France's national museum of Asian art, is at 6 place d'Iéna, about 550 meters east of the square.

Le Metropolitan, on place de Mexico, describes its surroundings as residential. Passy Cemetery, where the painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot are buried in the Manet family tomb, sits on a walled, raised site beside the square. Entry is free.

Who the Trocadéro suits

• Travelers who want a room facing the Eiffel Tower. Both hotels in the area sell rooms with a view of the tower, and so does Brach Paris nearby.
• Museum visitors. The Palais de Chaillot museums and the Musée Guimet are all within about 600 meters of the square.
• Couples who want a small five-star hotel. Le Metropolitan has 48 rooms and suites, and none sleeps more than two people.
• Families who need space. Shangri-La Paris has connecting family suites for four to six people and can arrange babysitting.

Every hotel compared here is five-star, and Shangri-La Paris also holds France's Palace distinction, a rating above five stars. The square also has four-star hotels, such as Hôtel Eiffel Trocadéro on rue Benjamin-Franklin. If you plan to spend most days around the Louvre or the Marais, stay closer to them: the Louvre is more than 3 kilometers east of the Trocadéro in a straight line.

Getting around

Trocadéro Métro station, on the square, serves line 6 and line 9. Iéna station on line 9 is one stop east, close to Shangri-La Paris and the Musée Guimet.

• Gare Montparnasse: line 6 runs direct to Montparnasse–Bienvenüe. Between Passy and Bir-Hakeim the train runs above ground and crosses the Seine on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
• Charles de Gaulle airport and Gare du Nord: take line 6 to Denfert-Rochereau and change to the RER B heading north. RER B trains stop at Gare du Nord before continuing to the airport.
• Orly airport and Gare de Lyon: take line 6 to Bercy and change to line 14. Line 14 has run to Aéroport d'Orly since June 2024, and it also stops at Gare de Lyon, one stop from Bercy. A higher fare applies to Métro journeys that start or end at Orly.
• Central Paris: line 9 runs east through Franklin D. Roosevelt (change for line 1), Saint-Augustin (change for line 14) and Havre–Caumartin (change for RER A and RER E).

Le Metropolitan has no airport shuttle, but it can book a private car to either airport for a fee.

The tradeoffs

The terrace of the Palais de Chaillot is a popular place to photograph the Eiffel Tower, so the square and the gardens are busy with visitors. Fans also gather on the square to celebrate sports victories.

The area is built on a hill. Walking from the square to the Eiffel Tower means going down through the gardens and across the Pont d'Iéna, and walking back means climbing again. Shangri-La Paris shows the slope: its building runs from avenue d'Iéna down to rue Fresnel, 15 meters lower.

Choosing a hotel

Shangri-La Paris, at 10 avenue d'Iéna, is the larger of the two hotels in the area, with 100 rooms and suites in the house built in the 1890s for Prince Roland Bonaparte, a geographer and botanist. Rooms start at 36 m², many face the Eiffel Tower, and some have private terraces. The hotel has a 17-meter pool, a Chinese restaurant and a French bistro.

Le Metropolitan, at 10 place de Mexico, has 48 rooms and suites about 400 meters from Trocadéro station. Rooms measure 18 to 22 m², none sleeps more than two, and extra beds are not allowed, so a family with an older child needs two rooms. Only some categories face the Eiffel Tower, so book one that names the view. The hotel has a heated indoor pool, 10 by 3 meters, and a Japanese fusion restaurant, Hokusaï.

Two more five-star hotels are listed as nearby options, each in a different neighborhood about a kilometer from the square in a straight line. Brach Paris, at 1–7 rue Jean-Richepin near La Muette, is a 59-room hotel designed by Philippe Starck in a converted 1960s post office building. It is near Rue de la Pompe station, one stop west of Trocadéro on line 9, and has a 22-meter pool and connecting rooms for families. Saint James Paris, at 5 place du Chancelier-Adenauer near the Bois de Boulogne, is a 48-room hotel and private club in an 1890s mansion set in a garden. Before 7 pm, its bar and garden terrace are open only to hotel guests and club members.

Art and literary addresses within a walk

Berthe Morisot's family lived at 16 rue Benjamin-Franklin, about 350 meters south of the square, where a studio was built in the garden for her and her sister Edma in the 1860s. Marcel Proust spent his last years at 44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin, about 700 meters northeast, and died there on 18 November 1922. The building is now a three-star hotel, the Hôtel Elysées Union. The novelist Edith Wharton stayed with her brother at 3 place des États-Unis when she arrived in Paris in 1906. The Morisot and Wharton addresses are private buildings, seen only from the street.