HI - Paris Clichy Hostel - Auberge 'Léo Lagrange'

Just say no
Everything about this hostel sucked. Located in a dodgy part of town, the staff looked like they had been recruited locally. I came back to my room on my last night and found some other guy sleeping in my bed, insisting it was his. When I went to reception to have him removed, the girl made out I was a wimp for not removing him myself. Worse was the fact that another female member of staff was aggressive and rude to me at reception for no other reason than I can work out other than I didn't chat her up when she was serving in the bar the previous night. She also encouraged other guests to bully me. My advice for any single male travelers would be to only think about this place as a last resort and only then if you have a lot of assertiveness and to take special care with the plai-looking girl wearing glasses serving at the bar.

Ok
This hostel is ok (reasonably clean, friendly staff, breakfast included) but the only thing that I really didn't like at all is that on their Hostelling International informations, it is written that they are near the main touristic attractions, which is totally not true at all. If you want to go to the main touristic attractions such as Tour Eiffel, Louvre, Triumph Arc, Invalides, you need to take a forty-five-minute bus ride or a thirty-minute subway ride, so that's the only thing that kind of sucked, but beside that it is alright, and it's cheap (20 euro by night).

Minimalistic soviet style but functional and cheap
the hostel is clean and functional, I have slept in a four-bed room for 20 euros, which in Paris is a bargain. Also it's very easy to locate near to the the Mairie de Clichy metro station. Yet don't expect any concession to art and style, it's very barren and not much social life going on in the living room. Staff were ok, not too friendly but I assume in Paris everyone is that way.

Good deal for the price
I was there September of 2006. You can't beat the price if you want to see Paris for little money. Yes it was sometimes noisy at night, but it is expected. There was sometimes some drama happening which I found interesting. I have recommended it to friends who are on a budget and aren't afraid to rough it. I would recommend groups of three friends to go together so they get placed together in the same dorm. I went alone and was lucky enough to have the room to myself several nights. The staff came across as rude (although I wasn't sure it was a joke) to charming. If you need an inexpensive place this is it. I would recommend bringing you own pillow. I did get bit by something a couple of nights, but then I slept with the window open. There is are markets nearby where you can get water, soda, food as well as some restaurants. The tourist information building is a couple blocks down the street near the entrance to the subway.

This was a below average hostel. I wish I could say it was only a place to sleep, but it was so noisy that I got maybe half-hour sleep all night. It is very echoey and you hear every door slam all night. The staff were ok, not friendly, not unfriendly (to me, they were not pleasant to some other people we saw dealing with them). The rooms are at least semi-private, only three people in our room, but no lockers in them at all, so security is an issue, and there is luggage storage room that seems open to anyone, surveyed with a camera. You can rent a locker for $2 a pop. Expensive if you want to take anything else. However, there were no insects in the bed, it was fairly clean and since I was traveling with one person and the other person in the room was friendly and trustworthy, it was a good place to store our luggage while we went out. I would recommend partying all night, don't expect a good night's sleep. The location was seedy looking, but close to the metro, so we could get pretty much anywhere with a bit of travel. Not a fantastic intro to Paris.

This hostel it's so bad, so horrible, ugly. The staff are very nice. I stay with my girlfriend only two days. The neighborhood is not good. The day i come to the hostel some tourist was trying to commit suicide! and when we go out to the ugly elevator we found a lot of police try to save the man! The kitchen? no comments. The pizzeria in front of the hostel, its very nice and good. I don't recommend this hostel.

Functional hostel that is set in an apartment tower. Staff are ok, room was on the fifth floor, but the room itself was clean and recently renovated. The reason for the low rating is the location -- Clichy is a poor suburb and is surrounded by even poorer ones (Genivilliers, Saint Denis). Keep your head down and run for the Metro stop down the street.

Well, it's one of Paris' cheapest hostels. That I believe was the few thing good about this hostel. By far I stayed in better places in my travel around Europe. The problems are security, and when you tried to cook something you must wait at least forty to fifty minutes. Also there's a lot of family that are not young, and I believed that this hostal was for young people. The few good thing are that you get the chance to get at any time, you meet nice people from around the globe, the staff is also nice (well just the two canadien girls cause rest of the staff is rude), and don't know how speak English or Spanish.

I cannot understand how this hostel is part of Hostelling International. I have traveled around Europe twice, and I never found a hostel as sad and horrible as this one. There is only one lift that works half of the time, which is a burden if you have to carry your backpacks up to the 6th floor. The rooms are small and WITHOUT WARDROBE! The solution: leave your backpack in the luggage room, which is extremely crowded (to the extreme of not being able to close the door). Ah, by the way, nobody is responsible if something gets lost. So they "offer" you the option of the lockers in the basement, but you have to pay 2 euros every time you open it and close it again. And you are lost if your bag is big, because the lockers are all of the same size (not too big). The breakfast is extremely small. Etc., etc., etc. I don't recommend this place at all!

The worst part of this hostel was probably the kitchen. Far too few hot plates, at times no hot water and no washing-up, broken frying pans, pots and utensils and not enough of them. You were not allowed to use the kitchen in the morning or at lunch. Then there were unclean toilets with missing toilet seats. The staff were rude and the hostel was unclean in general.

This was by far the worst and scariest hostel I stayed at on my last backpacking trip, and we went all over Europe for 5 weeks, so I've seen a fair share. The hostel is in a questionable neighborhood. I stayed here with my boyfriend and BOTH of us were scared for our safety, especially at night when there were people coming and going loudly up the stairs (next to our room) at all hours. We had no problems with the staff but it is a pain to drop off the key upon leaving the building, and it makes me wonder, what sort of problems have they had in the past that they need to keep all the room keys locked up? Bathrooms were co-ed and gross — it might not be so bad if you're a boy and you stand up, but as a girl, I found it disgusting. The rooms were no frills. Mother Theresa must've had more in her bedroom than they gave us — bare walls, cold floors, one scratchy wool blanket each (we were there in December) that looked like it had never been washed, holes in the sheets, etc. The one saving grace of this hostel, for me, was the pizzeria across the street. Very friendly service, GREAT pizza; the waiter even helped me improve my French some. I would never go back there. There are so many nicer hostels in Paris.

Well, I had a great time in the youth hostel. There's a nice staff, good rooms, and a good breakfast. The shop on the other side of the road is one of the perfect things . . . you can buy food there and cook it in the (clean) kitchen of the hostel. And the people I met there were great!

We stayed at this hostel in July and we liked it. It is pretty far out but it's really easy to take the Metro from it to all of the major attractions. The area it's in is quite nice as well and there is a supermarket across the street. The rooms themselves are plain but it was clean and each room has its own sink. The room we were in had three beds so it was nice and small, and from what I understand the rest of the rooms are just as small. The breakfast is great, they let you help yourself and eat your fill. It's plain and simple like most hostels, bread, butter, jam, juice, coffee, tea and hot chocolate. It doesn't have a curfew, which is nice, and it's relatively quiet at night. The kitchen is well equipped but it gets really busy later at night, after 7, so try to make your dinner early. The staff were really nice too. A female friend of mine felt threatened by another male guest and they went out of their way to find out who it was and make sure that he didn't bother her again. All together we would recommend this hostel. It's nothing special but it's clean and comfortable and safe.

January, 2005. This was the first hostel we stayed whilst travelling Europe and the worst one as well. The rooms were very cold, as the heating did not work. The toilets were disgusting... people should learn to flush after they've used them. At least the showers had hot water. Friendly staff was about the only good thing about the place. We recommend finding alternative accommodations in Paris.

I stayed here six nights last month while visiting Paris, and it sucked. We were woken up by the hostel officers at 1:30 a.m. to check our receipts, because some bloke checked in late to discover that he didn't have a bed and all the beds were already filled. This happened for three nights while I was there. There were no apologies from the officers, and it really disrupted our much-needed rest. On the fifth day, I came back to discover my baggage all gone. A check with one of the officers showed that they packed my room by mistake! That was quite a scare, as a girl from Brazil lost her baggage just two days earlier. She had stayed in a room where the door's lock was broken and ended up losing her stuff. I know because I stayed in the same room a day later. Notices were pasted on the lift doors asking people to return her belongings. I hope she at least got her passport back. I cannot believe the administration of this hostel. To be fair, I think the location is quite all right, just 20 minutes from the city center. Breakfast is ok, too. They served bread rolls, jam, butter, coffee, hot chocolate, orange juice, tea and milk. Sheets were clean, but I was bitten by bedbugs twice. Toilets were clean most of the time. Overall, due to the nightly disruptions, and security issues, I would not recommend this place.