In France, a local town hall is a mairie, where the mayor (maire) presides, and is more often than not called the hôtel de ville, three words that have confounded many a foreign traveler.
Years ago, with friends driving from London to the south of France on our way to one of those three-day château
weddings (in this case a great-great-granddaughter of Victor Hugo who
was marrying her piano teacher), we decided to stop for the night.
Arriving in a small town in Burgundy, the driver, a Brazilian banker and
friend who fancied himself Ayrton Senna, upon spotting the elegant hôtel de ville stopped the car, jumped out, and proclaimed, "Now this
is what I call a hotel!" and began to unload the bags from the trunk.
His usually cool-and-calm English wife, fed up with being cramped in the
car for hours and bickering with him at almost every kilometer (though
having taken many a wrong turn he refused to ask directions), leaned
back, closed her eyes, and calmly said, "For Godsakes that's the town
hall! Pleeease put everything back in the car and stop being so tiresome!" - BPJ
Above: l'Hôtel de Ville - Paris's main town hall - not a hotel to spend the night
