Hemingway’s favorite spots in Paris to visit
Sometimes the best way to learn about a locale (or get inspired for a future trip) is to see the city through someone else’s eyes—especially if that someone else has a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Sometimes the best way to learn about a locale (or get inspired for a future trip) is to see the city through someone else’s eyes—especially if that someone else is Ernest Hemingway, the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature winning author known for works such as “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Old Man and the Sea.”
Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast famously highlights the Jazz Age-era arts and literature scene in Paris, where he lived as an expat in the 1920s. Want to follow in Hemingway’s footsteps through the City of Light? Check out some of his favorite haunts below.
Les Deux Magots
6 Place Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris
Many of the cafes and bars that served as meeting places for the Lost Generation are still around and bustling today, such as Les Deux Magots (pictured above). It was a favorite of Hemingway, Simone de Beauvoir, Picasso, and others. In Hemingway’s memoir, he meets fellow literary denizen James Joyce here for sherry.
Hemingway’s first apartment
74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, Paris
The author and his first wife, Hadley, lived in a cold-water flat on the third floor of this apartment building. If you walk by the address today, it’s easy to spot its vibrant cobalt door.
Gertrude Stein’s apartment
27 rue de Fleurus, Paris
During the day, Ms. Stein’s apartment served as a kind of intellectual saloon, frequented by writers and painters (she was an avid art collector). At night, the Left Bank apartment became a cocktail-filled gathering spot for the Lost Generation.
Luxembourg Gardens
6e Arrondissement, Paris
Hemingway often spent afternoons strolling the gorgeous gardens—it’s easy to see why.
Île de la Cité
below the Pont Neuf, Paris
A lover of seafood and hard work, Hemingway enjoyed coming to this spot along the Seine riverbank to watch the fishermen at work.
Shakespeare & Company Bookstore
12 rue de l’Odéon, Paris
The literati hub frequented by Hemingway and his cohorts was Sylvia Beach’s bookstore and library at 12 rue de l’Odéon. The shop was was closed during the German occupation of WWII and never reopened, but after Beach’s death, a different English-language bookshop renamed itself “Shakespeare & Company” in her honor and quickly became a hotspot for Bohemian Parisians and expats. Visit the current shop at 37 rue de la Bûcherie (pictured below).
What famous authors would you follow around a city? Maybe James Joyce in Dublin or Elizabeth Gilbert in Mumbai? on Facebook!