Lavie Maison : Cozy AC Fontaine

Ground floor, street-facing, in a pocket of Auteuil that still feels like the village it once was. You hear the neighbourhood before you see it — footsteps on the pavement, a shutter rolling up somewhere down the block.

Twenty-nine square metres, worked hard. A separate bedroom, a living room with a double sofa bed and an armchair (five people sleep here, comfortably), air conditioning for the warm months, and a kitchenette that actually cooks.

Auteuil was a village before Paris swallowed it, and the bones show — Haussmann façades, Art Deco doorways, the Sunday market on rue d'Auteuil. The Bois de Boulogne is a walk away. So is the Trocadéro.

Best for a small family or a group of friends who want the 16e without the hush of a hotel. What stays with you: the quiet of the quartier, the tower a few metro stops off.

Step out and Auteuil unfolds quietly — the low-rise Haussmanniens, a florist setting out buckets on rue d'Auteuil, schoolchildren cutting through place Jean-Lorrain toward the marché. Mornings smell of butter from Le Fournil d'Auteuil; afternoons belong to the pensioners reading Le Figaro on the benches outside the église Notre-Dame d'Auteuil. It's residential Paris, the version that doesn't perform for anyone.

The anchor is the marché d'Auteuil on place Jean-Lorrain, Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Come for the rôtisserie chicken with potatoes cooked in the drippings underneath — order one with a demi-baguette from the stall two down, and you have lunch back at la maison. The vendors know their regulars; by your third visit, they'll know you too.