Live Like a Hamster at La Villa Hamster Hotel

If you want to know what it’s like to live like a hamster, than look no further than La Villa Hamster. Tucked away down an unremarkable side-street near the centre of the western French city, La Villa Hamster offers guests the "unique" opportunity to live the life of a rodent.The hotel has all basic amenities essential for a rodent such as containers of organic grain, a metal water spigot activating by pushing a giant lever with your foot, and a double bed accessible only by a step ladder and a crawl space, a bathroom with a giant vat of wood chips, a giant troth for a sink and a working human-sized hamster wheel. Villa guests are also given hamster masks to wear during their stay.

La Villa Hamster is the brainchild of 42-year-old scenographer Yann Falquerho and Frédéric Tabary, the interior designer with whom he works. "We wanted to create a place that was a real gîte - a place where you could sleep and be comfortable - but also where you could have a real experience," he explained. "We wanted it to be eccentric and we decided that the funniest experience would be to become an animal."

Since opening in 2009, the Villa has been submerged with requests for visits from both inquisitive media and paying guests.

The duo are now looking for properties in Paris and in London with the intention of expanding the experience across the channel.

French architect Frederic Tabary posed Sunday inside the “Hamster’s Villa”, which he imagined and conceived together with architect Yann Falquerho. For 99 euros a night, guests can sleep in the 18th century caretaker’s room in Nantes, France, designed to give the impression of living in a hamster’s cage. (Stephane Mahe/Reuters)

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