Hotel Villa Escudier

The location worked well for getting around, with a line 10 metro station nearby and Saint Germain about 17 minutes away. The hotel's courtyard is lovely and cozy, though the rooms are worn and the flooring needs replacing. The kitchen is very small, but you can cook if you're careful. Boulogne-Billancourt has plenty of green space, including the large Bois de Boulogne to the north, once a royal hunting ground and later made into a public park by Baron Haussmann. The city also has parks such as the Albert Kahn Gardens, a four-hectare complex with seven themed areas, among them Japanese and French gardens and a forest with blue satin cedars. The Albert Kahn Museum holds a large archive of photographs and films documenting cultures around the world. The place has a long history. A woodcutters' village called Menuil-les-Saint-Claude was founded on the Seine around 1100. In 1319, King Philip V ordered a church modeled on the one in Boulogne-sur-Mer, and the village took the name Boulogne-la-Petite. The nearby Rouvray forest became known as the Bois de Boulogne. The commune adopted its current name, Boulogne-Billancourt, in 1926 when it merged with Billancourt. Renault factories brought an industrial character in the early 20th century, and since the second half of that century the city has shifted toward being a major business center. It's west of Paris, bordered by the Seine to the south and west, which gives it a peninsula shape.