Hemingway in Paris
A definitive guide to Ernest Hemingway’s Paris.
Hemingway lived in Paris from 1922 to 1928 and returned several times for short visits. His memoir «A Moveable Feast» covers these days in Paris. My research is mostly based on it, but I supplemented it with places from other sources.
I do not intend to present a scholarly study, but unlike other articles on the Internet like «the top Hemingway’s Paris places», in this one, I tried to gather in one place all the spots where he had been or which indicate that he presumably visited.
All listed places on Google Maps.
1. Hôtel Jacob et Angleterre (now called Hôtel d’Angleterre)
44 rue Jacob
On December 20, 1921, Ernest Hemingway, at the age of 22, and his wife Hadley came to Paris for the first time. Until they found an apartment, they checked into the Hôtel Jacob et Angleterre in room № 14. The hotel was recommended to them by Sherwood Anderson, who stayed there the previous fall. Today, Hôtel d’Angleterre still allows guests to stay in this room, and a glass case in the lobby records Hemingway’s time there.
2. Café de la Paix
5 Place de l’Opéra
Ernest and Hadley ate here on their first Christmas in Paris. Later, Ernest used to stop by for a drink on the way to his bank. This cafe became the setting for the story «My Old Man» and was casually mentioned in his first novel.
After we finished the lunch we walked up to the cafe de la Paix and had coffee.
The Sun Also Rises
3. Le Pré aux Clercs
30 Rue Bonaparte
It was one of Hemingway’s earliest finds during the first visit. Ernest and Hadley ate good food here for absurdly low prices (by American standards): dinner for two came only twelve francs, and good Pinard wine cost sixty centimes per bottle.
4. 1st apartment
74 rue de Cardinal Lemoine
I would give up the room in the hotel where I wrote and there was only the rent of 74 rue Cardinal Lemoine which was nominal.
A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel
Hemingways moved into an apartment on the fourth floor on January 9, 1922, and lived there until August 1923 (the interior is closed to the public). Lewis Galantière, one of Sherwood Anderson’s friends, helped them to find a room. Ernest wrote to his parents that the apartment was «the jolliest place you ever saw. We rented it furnished for 250 francs a month, about 18 dollars <…> It is on top of a high hill in the very oldest part of Paris. The nicest part of the Latin Quarter.» Actually, it consisted of only two rooms and a tiny kitchen, it was not convenient to a Metro stop and was in a poor working-class neighborhood. The reason for this choice was that the price was right, while a nicely furnished apartment around Luxembourg Gardens and Montparnasse cost 1000 francs or 85 dollars a month.
On the ground floor of the same building, there was a workmen’s dance hall, or Bal Musette (used to be called «Bal au Printemps», but now no longer exists). Sometimes Hemingways went down to take a whirl, but unfortunately, the clamor, compounded by annoying accordion music, was there every night.
“I stopped by to ask you to the little evenings we’re giving in that amusing Bal Musette near the Place Contrescarpe on the rue Cardinal Lemoine.”
“I lived above it for two years before you came to Paris this last time.”
“How odd. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”
<…>
“It’s under 74 rue Cardinal Lemoine,” I said. “I lived on the third floor.”Ford Maddox Ford and the Devil’s Disciple
5. Café des Amateurs (now occupied by Café Delmas)
2 Place de la Contrescarpe
…the Cafe des Amateurs was crowded and the windows misted over from the heat and the smoke inside. It was a sad, evilly run cafe where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness.
A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel
Just around the corner from the entrance at 74 Cardinal Lemoine was the Café des Amateurs. Ernest called it «the cesspool of the rue Mouffetard» and avoided this place because it attracted only drunks, whores, and ruffians from the nearest street market.
At the beginning of Chapter IV of «The Sun Also Rises», Hemingway describes a taxicab heading down the Rue Mouffetard from the Place de la Contrescarpe.
The taxi went up the hill, passed the lighted square, then on into the dark, <…> went smoothly down the asphalt, passed the trees and the standing bus at the Place de la Contrescarpe, then turned onto the cobbles of the Rue Mouffetard. There were lighted bars and late open shops on each side of the street.
The Sun Also Rises
6. Writing Room
39 rue Descartes
…and the hotel where Verlaine had died where you had a room on the top floor where you worked.
A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel
Hemingway did not do his writing at home. He rented an attic room as an office in the old hotel where poet Paul Verlaine died twenty-five years before.
According to Hemingway’s biographer, Michael Reynolds, there is no evidence that he rented a writing room. This seems to be fiction, mentioned only in «A Moveable Feast».
7. Place Saint-Michel
Hemingway does not disclose which café he worked in. Instead of it, he accurately describes the path he took to get there.
I walked down past the Lycee Henri Quatre and the ancient church of St.-Etienne-du-Mont and the windswept Place du Pantheon and cut in for shelter to the right and finally came out on the lee side of the Boulevard St.-Michel and worked on down it past the Cluny and the Boulevard St.-Germain until I came to a good cafe that I knew on the Place St.-Michel.
A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel
74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine → Lycée Henri IV → Saint-Étienne-du-Mont → Place du Panthéon → Boulevard Saint-Michel → Musée de Cluny → Boulevard Saint-Germain → Place Saint-Michel.
The description of the return way is not very detailed.
I finished the oysters and the wine and paid my score in the cafe and made it the shortest way back up the Montagne Ste. Genevieve through the rain, <…> to the flat at the top of the hill.
A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel
8. Luxembourg Gardens
Jardin du Luxembourg
If I walked down by different streets to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the afternoon I could walk through the gardens and then go to the Musee du Luxembourg…
Miss Stein Instructs
The garden was a usual part of Hemingway’s walking routes through the city.
9. Musée du Luxembourg
15 rue de Vaugirard
There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were heightened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cezanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry.
Hunger Was Good Discipline
Hemingway often visited the museum «for the Cézannes and to see the Manets and the Monets and the other Impressionists».
10. Gertrude Stein Salon
27 rue de Fleurus
It was easy to get into the habit of stopping in at 27 rue de Fleurus late in the afternoon for the warmth and the great pictures and the conversation.
Une Génération Perdue
Hemingway met Gertrude Stein in March 1922. She was among Sherwood Anderson’s contacts. Stein lived with her companion, Alice Toklas, and collected paintings by Cézanne, Matisse, Braque, Gris, Picasso, and others. Ernest and Hadley soon became frequent visitors to Stein’s salon. The young Hemingway admired Stein as a mentor, but later, their friendship grew apart.
11. Shakespeare and Company (original)
12 rue de l’Odéon
In those days there was no money to buy books. Books you borrowed from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l’Odeon.
Shakespeare and Company
The tiny two-room bookshop «Shakespeare and Company» was founded by American expat Sylvia Beach in 1919. She also acted as a lady-publisher of James Joyce’s «Ulysses». At the same time, Sylvia ran the lending library from which Hemingway took books like «A Sportsman’s Sketches» by Turgenev, «Son and Lovers» by D. H. Lawrence, Constance Garnett’s edition of «War and Peace», «The Gambler» by Dostoevsky and Henry James’ novels for Hadley.
12. Shakespeare and Company (contemporary)
37 rue de la Bûcherie
The original Sylvia Beach’s bookshop was shut down in 1941. A contemporary «Shakespeare and Company» opened in 1951. The same name and atmosphere make it an attractive tourist spot. It has nothing to do with Hemingway except for the opportunity to buy his books there.
13. Restaurant Michaud (today occupied by Le Comptoir des Saints-Pères)
29 Rue des Saints-Pères
”Let’s go to a wonderful place and have a truly grand dinner.”
“Where?”
“Michaud’s?”
“That’s perfect and it’s so close.”
So we walked up the rue des Saints-Peres to the corner of the rue Jacob stopping and looking in the windows at pictures and at furniture. We stood outside of Michaud’s restaurant reading the posted menu.A False Spring
Hemingways ate there from time to time, but compared to where they usually ate, Michaud was more fashionable and expensive. It was frequented by James Joyce, as Hemingway writes: «We’ve seen him at Michaud’s eating with his family». And it was also the site of the events in «A Matter of Measurements».
14. La Tour d’Argent
15 Quai de la Tournelle
The Tour D’Argent restaurant had a few rooms above the restaurant that they rented in those days, <…> and if the people who lived there left any books behind there was a bookstall not far along the quai where the valet de chambre sold them and you could buy them from the proprietress for a very few francs.
People of the Seine
It was and is a historic Parisian restaurant with one Michelin star. Hemingway was too poor to eat there, but there was a place nearby where he could buy used books in English.
15. Les bouquinistes
Quai des Grands Augustins
After that bookstall near the Tour D’Argent there were no others that sold American and English books until the quai des Grands Augustins.
People of the Seine
From time to time, Hemingway checked out offers of second-hand booksellers. Those dark green metal boxes are still clamped to the stone walls of the embankment.
He also walked along the embankments of the left bank when he finished his work because this route offers a pleasant view of Cité and Saint-Louis islands.
Across the branch of the Seine was the Ile St.-Louis with the narrow streets and the old, tall, beautiful houses, and you could go over there or you could turn left and walk along the quais with the length of the Ile St.-Louis and then Notre-Dame and Ile de la Cite opposite as you walked.
People of the Seine
16. Hotel du Quai Voltaire
19 Quai Voltaire
Actually, Hemingway has nothing to do with the hotel, but he mentioned it as the last stop of bouquinistes.
There were several from there on to past the quai Voltaire that sold books they bought from employees of the left bank hotels and especially the Hotel Voltaire which had a wealthier clientele than most.
People of the Seine
17. Square du Vert-Galant
15 Place du Pont Neuf
During his walks, Hemingway went down to this small square to watch the fishermen.
At the head of the Ile de la Cite below the Pont Neuf where there was the statue of Henri Quatre, the island ended in a point like the sharp bow of a ship and there was a small park at the water’s edge with fine chestnut trees, <…> there were excellent places to fish.
People of the Seine
18. Gare de Lyon
Place Louis-Armand
Hemingway actively used railways as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star Weekly newspaper. From here, he took the Oriental Express for the four-day ride to Constantinople to cover the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and also took a train to Lyon to pick up Scott Fitzerald’s car.
On the morning we were to leave from the Gare de Lyon I arrived in plenty of time and waited outside the train gates for Scott.
Scott Fitzgerald
This place is also associated with a bad story when Ernest’s first manuscripts were stolen from Hadley because they traveled from here to Switzerland for skiing.
…everything I had written was stolen in Hadley’s suitcase that time at the Gare de Lyon when she was bringing the manuscripts down to me to Lausanne as a surprise.
Hunger Was Good Discipline
19. Gare de l’Est
Place du 11 novembre 1918
This station was also used by Hemingway for some business trips.
…when I got back to Paris I should have caught the first train from the Gare de l’Est that would take me down to Austria.
The Pilot Fish and the Rich
20. Gare du Nord
18 Rue de Dunkerque
Gare du Nord met Ernest Hemingway on his very first visit to Paris in May 1918, when he arrived in Europe on the way to the WWI Italian front.
Later, with Hadley, he took the train from this station to the suburbs to go to the horse races at Enghien or Auteuil. On race days in the 1920s, special trains ran straight through to the tracks.
So we went out by the train from the Gare du Nord through the dirtiest and saddest part of town and walked from the siding to the oasis of the track.
A False Spring
21. Hippodrome d’Enghien-Soisy
For some time in Paris, Hemingway was passionate about horse racing. During the racing season, he often bet on two tracks: Auteuil and Enghien.
I worked two tracks in their season when I could, Auteuil and Enghien.
The End of an Avocation
Enghien is one of the oldest race tracks in France. Its special feature is the ability to host two different disciplines in one day: flat racing and steeplechase.
22. Hippodrome d’Auteuil
When Ernest and Hadley went the jump racing at the Auteuil, for only five of six francs, they could enter the open field circled by the track with the nearest view.
It was hard work but at Auteuil it was beautiful to watch each day they raced when you could be there and see the honest races with the great horses, and you got to know the course as well as any place you had ever known.
The End of an Avocation
He preferred to watch some steeplechase races from the stands.
You had to watch a jumping race from the top of the stands at Auteuil and it was a fast climb up to see what each horse did and see the horse that might have won and did not, and see why, or at least how, or maybe how he did not do what he could have done.
The End of an Avocation
23. Café Prunier
16 avenue Victor Hugo
A fish restaurant that Hemingways could only visit if they had extra money. For example, after winning on a sweepstake.
Another day later that year when we had come back from one of our voyages and had good luck at some track again we stopped at Pruniers on the way home…
A False Spring
24. Place du Carrousel
Place du Carrousel was part of Ernest and Hadley’s walk through the evening city after a good day at the races and dinner at Prunie (16 avenue Victor Hugo near Place Charles de Gaulle) from the story «A False Spring».
We walked back through the Tuileries in the dark and stood and looked through the Arc du Carrousel up across the dark gardens with the lights of the Concorde behind the formal darkness and then the long rise of lights toward the Arc de Triomphe.
A False Spring
They considered the theory that the Arc du Carrousel, the Arc de Triomphe, and Porta Sempione in Milan are standing in one line.
Then we looked back toward the dark of the Louvre and I said, “Do you really think that the three arches are in line? These two and the Sermione in Milano?”
A False Spring
After that they «had come out of the gateway through the Louvre and crossed the street outside and were standing on the bridge leaning on the stone and looking down at the river.» The bridge — is a pedestrian bridge Pont des Arts.
Arc de Triomphe → Place de la Concorde → Tuileries Garden → Place du Carrousel → Louvre → Pont des Arts.
25. Guaranty Trust Company (no longer exists)
1 rue des Italiens
A bank where Hemingway set up a checking account was located here.
…and met my friend Mike Ward at the travel desk in the Guaranty Trust which was then at the corner of the rue des Italiens on the Boulevard des Italiens. I was depositing the racing capital but I did not tell that to anyone.
The End of an Avocation
26. Square Louvois
69bis Rue de Richelieu
We had lunch at the square Louvois at a very good, plain bistro with a wonderful white wine. Across the square was the Bibliotheque Nationale.
The End of an Avocation
During lunch in a cafe in the square, Ernest’s friend Mike Ward discourages him from betting at the races.
27. Vélodrome d’Hiver (demolished in 1959)
It stood at the corner of the Boulevard de Grenelle and Rue Nélaton
I will get the Velodrome d’Hiver with the smoky light of the afternoon and the high-banked wooden track and the whirring sound the tires made on the wood as the riders passed, the effort and the tactics as the riders climbed and plunged, each one a part of his machine…
The End of an Avocation
Cycling was the second factor in Hemingway’s refusal of horse races. A six-day cycle racing in «Vel’ d’Hiv’» (translates to «Winter Velodrome») was introduced to Ernest by Mike Ward.
In July 1942, French police, under Nazi orders, used the velodrome to hold 13000 Jews before deporting them to concentration camps. A plaque on the 7 Rue Nélaton (former velodrome place) serves as a memorial of this incident.
28. Robert McAlmon’s Contact Publishing Company
8 rue de l’Odéon
Robert McAlmon published the first Hemingway book «Three Stories and Ten Poems» in August 1923. Ernest made no money from it because no royalties were involved, but it was a big deal for the young writer.
29. Three Mountain Press
29 quai d’Anjou
Hemingway’s newsman friend, Bill Bird, purchased an ancient Mathieu hand press and started a printing shop on the Île Saint-Louis island in 1922. Later, he provided office accommodation to Ford Madox Ford for the Transatlantic Review. Ernest was often there, but he did not like Ford for personal and financial reasons.
I tried always to see him in the open air if possible and when I would go down to Bill Bird’s hand press on the Quai d’Anjou at the Ile St.-Louis where he edited his review to read manuscripts for him…
The Acrid Smell of Lies
On the same island, there was a Madame Lecomte restaurant where Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton from «The Sun Also Rises» had dinner. It could probably be a small restaurant, «Au Rendez-Vous des Mariniers», which was not preserved at the time.
30. André Masson studio (now is a square with a Miró sculpture)
45 Rue Blomet
During his first long stay in Paris, Hemingway became acquainted with André Masson through Gertrude Stein. Sometimes, Ernest visited Masson and Joan Miró’s studio to watch their work or to serve as a boxing coach. He bought some of their paintings along with other modernist artworks.
31. 2nd apartment (now demolished for extensions to École Alsacienne)
113 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs
…I had worked hard all day and left the flat where we lived over the sawmill at 113 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and walked out through the courtyard with the stacked lumber, closed the door, crossed the street and went into the back door of the bakery that fronted on the Boulevard Montparnasse…
With Pascin at the Dôme
At the end of 1923, Hemingways returned to America to have his first child. As soon as Mr. Bumby was strong enough for the transatlantic voyage, they returned to Paris on February 8, 1924.
Before Hemingway’s arrival, Ezra Pound and his wife offered to share their large ground-floor apartment at 70 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Ernest accepted, but Hadley found the Pounds’ place dark and claustrophobic. For their new home, they chose a second-floor apartment at № 113 on the same street. A month’s rent was 650 francs (almost three times what they had paid on Cardinal-Lemoine), the apartment had no electricity, and there was a sawmill workshop on the ground floor. But at the same time, the space was better, the location was closer to Gertrude Stein’s salon, Luxembourg Garden, and a few steps from an unspoiled café called La Closerie de Lilas.
32. St. Luke’s Church (closed its doors in 1929, now does not exist)
5 Rue de la Grande Chaumière
At the age of five months, John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway (Mr. Bumby) was baptized at the small chapel. Eric «Chink» Dorman-Smith stood up as godfather and Gertrude Stein was godmother. Giorgio Joyce, the first James Joyce’s son, sang in the choir.
33. Ezra Pound’s studio
70 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs
The studio where he lived with his wife Dorothy on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs was as poor as Gertrude Stein’s studio was rich.
Ezra Pound and the Measuring Worm
The poet Ezra Pound and his wife, Dorothy Shakespear, lived here from 1921 to 1924. While Ezra was living in Paris, he and Gertrude Stein were the main teachers of Hemingway’s talent. Ernest learned from Pound the ability to show things without explaining them — show things by creating a visual image.
The events that happened to Ralph Cheever Dunning, «a poet who smoked opium and forgot to eat», from the story «An Agent of Evil», took place in this place.
34. Le Trou dans le Mur (the exact location is not determined, now does not exist)
Rue des Italiens
Presumably, this is where Ezra Pound bought the opium for Ralph Dunning.
I thought it must have come from the old Hole in the Wall bar which was a hangout for deserters and for dope peddlers during and after the first war. The Hole in the Wall was a narrow bar, almost a passageway, on the rue des Italiens with a red-painted facade…
An Agent of Evil
According to John Baxter, it could be on the Boulevard des Capucines.
35. La Closerie des Lilas
171 Boulevard du Montparnasse
All of the cafes of that time are now busy and overpriced tourist spots. Even then, Hemingway thought the same about popular places such as Le Dôme, La Rotonde, Le Select, and La Coupole. He found his own quiet and cozy cafe for work out of reach from the crowds of American expats. He often dined here and was acquainted with all the waiters.
The Closerie des Lilas was the nearest good cafe <…> and it was one of the nicest cafes in Paris. It was warm inside in the winter and in the spring and fall it was very fine outside with the tables under the shade of the trees on the side where the statue of Marshal Ney was, and the square, regular tables under the big awnings along the boulevard.
Ford Maddox Ford and the Devil’s Disciple
The Closerie is the setting place of the stories «Ford Maddox Ford and the Devil’s Disciple» and «Evan Shipman at the Lilas». It is also mentioned in «Une Génération Perdue» and «Scott Fitzgerald». It was here that Scott begged Ernest to read his new novel «The Great Gatsby». Also, most of the novel «The Sun Also Rises» was written here.
Then as I was getting up to the Closerie des Lilas with the light on my old friend, the statue of Marshal Ney with his sword out <…> I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be and I stopped at the Lilas to keep the statue company and drank a cold beer before going home to the flat over the sawmill.
Une Génération Perdue
Today, the tables in the bar are decorated with brass plates with the names of authors who drank there, including «Ernest Hemingway».
36. Brasserie Lipp
151 Boulevard Saint-Germain
Lipp’s brasserie was Hemingway’s favorite lunch spot. They still serve his preferred dish: cervelas sausage and potato salad (pommes a l’huile).
Lipp’s is where you are going to eat and drink too. <…> There were few people in the brasserie and when I sat down on the bench against the wall with the mirror in back and a table in front and the waiter asked if I wanted beer I asked for a distingue, the big glass mug that held a liter, and for potato salad.
Hunger Was Good Discipline
Hemingway describes his way to the brasserie in great detail in«Hunger Was Good Discipline»: starting from Avenue de l’Observatoire → Jardin du Luxembourg → narrow Rue Férou → Place Saint-Sulpice «were still no restaurants, only the quiet square with its benches and trees» → Rue de l’Odéon → Brasserie Lipp.
And the way back to his «office»:
I had paid the check and gone out and turned to the right and crossed the rue de Rennes so that I would not go to the Deux-Magots for coffee and was walking up the rue Bonaparte on the shortest way home. <…> I went up Bonaparte to Guynemer, then to the rue d’Assas, across the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs to the Closerie des Lilas.
Hunger Was Good Discipline
Brasserie Lipp → Rue Bonaparte → Rue Guynemer → Rue d’Assas → Rue Notre Dame des Champs → La Closerie Des Lilas.
37. Les Deux Magot
6 Place Saint-Germain des Prés
One day, years later, I met Joyce who was walking along the Boulevard St.-Germain after having been to a matinee alone. <…> He asked me to have a drink with him and we went to the Deux-Magots and ordered dry sherry…
The Man Who Was Marked for Death
In the 20s of the last century, it was a meeting point and an office for many artists and writers. And Hemingway was undoubtedly among them. Even his characters from «The Sun Also Rises» met at Magot. In the late 40s, it became the haunt of existentialists Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus.
68. Café de Flore
172 Boulevard Saint-Germain
This one is just a few meters from Les Deux Magot and just in front of the Lipp. It is one of the oldest Parisian coffeehouses, but unfortunately, there is no proof in reliable sources that Hemingway spent time here. Some Internet resources claim that his name is on the list of visitors of this place along with Boris Vian, Romain Gary, and Brigitte Bardot.
39. Le Dôme (today it is a top fish restaurant)
108 Boulevard du Montparnasse
…I passed the collection of inmates of the Rotonde and, <…> crossed the boulevard to the Dôme. The Dôme was crowded too, but there were people there who had worked. <…> I went over and sat with Pascin and two models who were sisters.
With Pascin at the Dôme
With a name in the French manner, «Café du Dôme» was a popular restaurant among bohemian artists. Hemingway visited it occasionally but despised the majority of its fashionable clients. Despite this, he devoted an entire chapter of «A Movable Feast» to his meeting with the painter Jules Pascin here.
40. La Rôtonde
105 Boulevard du Montparnasse
Along with the Dôme, the «Café de la Rotonde» was an extremely popular café among writers and painters (especially Pablo Picasso). Of course it was criticized by Hemingway for its public.
In those days many people went to the cafes at the corner of the Boulevard Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail to be seen publicly and in a way such places anticipated the columnists as the daily substitutes for immortality.
Ford Maddox Ford and the Devil’s Disciple
In Chapter VI of «The Sun Also Rises», he showed the indifference of local taxi drivers to the public gathering there.
The taxi stopped in front of the Rotonde. No matter what cafe in Montparnasse you ask a taxi-driver to bring you to from the right bank of the river, they always take you to the Rotonde. Ten years from now it will probably be the Dome. It was near enough, anyway.
The Sun Also Rises
He fully expressed his dismissive attitude towards the public of this cafe in a journalistic article American Bohemians in Paris a Weird Lot for Toronto Star Weekly.
These days it remains a fashionable place — Emmanuel Macron celebrating the results of the first round of the 2017 French presidential election at La Rotonde.
41. Le Select
99 Boulevard du Montparnasse
Another significant cafe in Montparnasse.
Coming back from The Select now where I had sheered off at the sight of Harold Stearns who I knew would want to talk horses…
With Pascin at the Dôme
42. La Coupole
102 Boulevard de Montparnasse
The newest among the jazz-age cafes on the Boulevard du Montparnasse. La Coupole was opened in 1927 in front of Le Select and targeted an American audience.
It was nothing like the organization of the Montparnasse quarter centered about the Dome, Rotonde, Select and later the Coupole or the Dingo bar which you read about in the books of early Paris.
The Education of Mr. Bumby
43. Dingo Bar (now occupied by Auberge de Venise)
10 rue Delambre
The first time I ever met Scott Fitzgerald a very strange thing happened. <…> He had come into the Dingo bar in the rue Delambre where I was sitting with some completely worthless characters…
Scott Fitzgerald
Here, in April 1925, Hemingway met Fitzgerald for the first time. For Ernest, a novice novelist, it was a big event to befriend a top writer.
44. Le Falstaff
42 rue du Montparnasse
Falstaff and Dingo were one of Hemingway’s favorite drinking spots because they were less trendy bars than other Montparnasse cafes.
45. Nègre de Toulouse (now occupied by L’Apéro)
159 Boulevard du Montparnasse
At the Negre de Toulouse we drank the good Cahors wine from the quarter, the half, or the full carafe, usually diluting it about one-third with water.
With Pascin at the Dôme
Unlike most drinking establishments in Montparnasse, Nègre de Toulouse was a real restaurant where Ernest and Headly went to dinner. Their cassoulet was especially to Hemingway’s liking.
In Chapter III of «The Sun Also Rises», Jake Barnes and Georgette come for dinner here. Instead of naming the place, Hemingway named the restaurant’s proprietor, Madame Lavigne. In the 20s, Monsieur and Madame Lavigne owned that place. Moreover, the first version of the manuscript contained more details: «By this time we were on the Boulevard Montparnasse, and I called to the cocher to stop at Lavigne’s restaurant, Le Negre de Toulouse.»
46. Harry’s New York Bar
5 rue Danou
This bar on the right bank, near the Paris Opera, was a favorite hangout for many American expats, including Hemingway. Harry’s Bar claims to have invented the Bloody Mary.
47. Le Jockey (now demolished)
46 Boulevard du Montparnasse, at the corner of Boulevard du Montparnasse and Rue Campagne-Première
Jockey Club was the first nightclub in the neighborhood. Of course, Hemingway was there and even danced with Josephine Baker.
Kiki de Montparnasse, famous muse of the artists of the twenties, was one of the stars of this club. Ernest knew her, too, and even provided an introduction to her autobiography «Kiki’s Memoirs».
48. Boulevard Saint-Michel
…Walsh asked me to lunch one day at a restaurant that was the best and the most expensive in the Boulevard St.-Michel quarter…
The Man Who Was Marked for Death
In one of the restaurants (no idea what) on the boulevard, Hemingway had lunch with Ernest Walsh, who was an American-born writer and died of complications from tuberculosis at 31.
49. Hôtel de Crillon
10 Place de la Concorde
When I had money I went to the Crillon.
A Matter of Measurements
We do not know much about a bar in the Hôtel de Crillon, except it was noted in a phrase in one of the stories.
At the beginning of Chapter VI of «The Sun Also Rises», Jake Barnes, the main character of the novel, agrees to meet and is waiting in the lobby for his lover, Lady Brett Ashley.
At five o’clock I was in the Hotel Crillon waiting for Brett. She was not there, so I sat down and wrote some letters. They were not very good letters but I hoped their being on Crillon stationery would help them.
The Sun Also Rises
50. Scott Fitzgerald’s apartment
14 rue de Tilsitt
The Fitzgeralds had rented a furnished flat at 14 rue de Tilsitt not far from the Etoile.
Scott Fitzgerald
Hemingway mentioned his friend’s apartment in a book. Quite possibly, he was visiting Scott and Zelda.
51. Femme de ménage’s apartment
10 Avenue des Gobelins
…when Hadley and I were in Spain in the summers he would pass those months with the femme de menage who he called Marie Cocotte and her husband, who he called Touton…
The Education of Mr. Bumby
Hemingways used to leave their child in the care of a nanny, Madame Henri Rohrbach.
52. Musée d’Orsay
1 Rue de la Légion d’Honneur
At the beginning of the XX century, it was a railway station called Gare d’Orsay. From here, trains went south on which Hemingway and his characters got to Spain.
We arranged to meet at Pamplona. They would go directly to San Sebastian and take the train from there. <…> Bill and I took the morning train from the Gare d’Orsay. It was a lovely day, not too hot, and the country was beautiful from the start.
The Sun Also Rises
53. Vénétia Hôtel (closed a long time ago)
159 Boulevard du Montparnasse
In the winter of 1925–1926, Hemingways went to the Schruns for the second time, but that Christmas, they were joined by Pauline Pfeiffer. Ernest returned with Pfeiffer to Paris, leaving Hadley with Bumby in Austria.
A biographer, A. E. Hotchner, quotes: «Hadley and Bumpy stayed in Shrumps and I said I’d return as soon as I got back from New York. I checked into the Hôtel Vénétia in Montparnasse. Pauline showed up the minute I stepped foot in Paris. Those four days she clung to me like ivy on a wall, taking me to nightclubs, Michelin restaurants, the Paris Opéra.»
54. Hôtel Beauvoir
43 Avenue Georges Bernanos
Ernest’s marriage with Hadley began to break down while he was working on «The Sun Also Rises». She moved out of their sawmill apartment and found a room at the Hôtel Beauvoir across the Avenue from Closerie des Lilas.
55. Gerald Murphy’s studio (old building no longer exists)
69 rue Froidevaux
As soon as Ernest and Hadley separated their residences, a painter, Gerald Murphy, offered Hemingway the use of his studio as a living space.
56. Pauline’s apartment
6 rue Ferou
Soon, Hemingway moved to Pauline Pfeiffer. She lived in an apartment owned by her uncle.
During the same year (1926), his first full-length novel, «The Sun Also Rises» was published in the United States by Scribner’s. A year later, the novel was published in London under the title «Fiesta».
57. Le Meurice
228 rue de Rivoli
Before leaving Paris in 1926, Ernest and Pauline spent their last night at the luxury hotel Le Meurice, which had a view of the Tuileries Garden.
58. Saint-Honoré-d’Eylau Church
9 Place Victor Hugo
Hemingway and Hadley divorced in January 1927. In May, he married Pauline. She insisted on holding a Catholic ceremony at the church of Saint-Honoré-d’Eylau.
59. Hotel Paris-Dinard (closed a long time ago)
29 rue Cassette
On March 10, 1937, Ernest Hemingway, matador Sidney Franklin, and poet Evan Shipman stayed here before they went to the Spanish Civil War as journalists.
60. Hôtel de la Païva (Travellers Club)
25 Avenue des Champs-Élysées
On August 25, 1944, Hemingway and the crew, with a colonel, David Bruce, entered occupied Paris. After he broke through to the Champs-Élysées, he visited the «Travellers Club» and ordered a bottle of champagne.
61. Bar Hemingway
15 Place Vendôme or 38 Rue Cambon
Many years later at the Ritz bar, long after the end of World War II, Georges, who is the bar man now and who was the chasseur when Scott lived in Paris, asked me, “Papa, who was this Monsieur Fitzgerald that everyone asks me about?”
A Matter of Measurements
The Ritz Paris and especially its bar was «liberated» by Hemingway in August 1944. On the day of «liberation», he ordered 50 martinis for his band of irregular soldiers.
In 1994, a small hotel’s bar was renamed the «Bar Hemingway» in his memory (he stayed in the Ritz in the mid-1950s). The easiest way inside is via the Rue Cambon entrance rather than going through the entire hotel from the main entrance.
62. Hôtel Ritz Paris
15 Place Vendôme
The hotel served as a storeroom for Hemingway’s stuff. In the introduction to the restored edition of «A Moveable Feast», Seán Hemingway writes: «In November 1956, the management of the Ritz Hotel in Paris convinced Ernest Hemingway to repossess two small steamer trunks that he stored there in March 1928. The trunks contained forgotten remnants from his first years in Paris.»
63. Sylvia Beach’s apartment
18 rue de l’Odéon
Another address that was liberated by Hemingway in 1944. Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier shared the fourth-floor apartment here.
64. Picasso’s studio
7 Rue des Grands Augustins
Just after Paris was liberated, Hemingway went to Picasso’s studio. But when he did not find Picasso in place, he left a case of hand grenades as a gift.
65. Café Napolitain (now occupied by Hippopotamus Steakhouse)
1 Boulevard des Capucines / Boulevard des Italiens
I sent a pneumatique to Larry and we met at the Cafe Napolitain on the Boulevard des Italiens.
A Strange Fight Club
I did not find any evidence of the existence of this cafe in the Boulevard des Italiens, where Hemingway met with Canadian boxer Larry Gains, but a café with the same name existed on 1, Boulevard des Capucines. It seems that the writer mixed up the Boulevards since the café is located at the very beginning of the Capucines, which adjoins the Italiens.
In the same chapter about boxing, Hemingway reminisces about one more mystery place, the Stade Anastasie, which «had turned out to be a very strange fight club». Despite the relatively detailed description, the location is unable to be marked on the map.
…at the Stade Anastasie in the rue Pelleport on Menilmontant the next tough hill of Paris to your right past the Buttes Chaumont if you should be standing in the middle of the slaughter house quarter looking towards the Porte de la Villette. An easier way to figure it was that it was the next to the last station on the Metro line that ran to the Porte des Lilas just before the reservoir of Menilmontant.
A Strange Fight Club
So, it could be somewhere in the 20th arrondissement, between Rue Pelleport, Ménilmontant, Parc des Buttes Chaumont, and Réservoir de Ménilmontant.
66. Café de la Régence (now occupied by the Bureau National Marocain du Tourisme)
161 Rue Saint-Honoré
This historic establishment was briefly mentioned in Hemigway’s column for Esquire: February 1934 «A Paris Letter», and it sounds like he was well aware of the mood prevailing in pre-war Paris.
Food is as good as ever and very expensive. <…> the vintners have not been bottling much champagne these last few years and there is good still champagne, that is natural champagne wine to which nothing has been added and which has not been processed in bottling to make it sparkle, on draft at the Café Regence for nine francs a wooden pitcher. This is the café where Napoleon used to play chess when he was the First Consul.
There is a contemporary «Café de la Régence» on the same block, but it borrowed only the name from the old place, which was closed in 1955 (nonetheless, a commemorative plaque remains on the building).
All photos were taken in May 2015.
List of the sources
Reliable sources (books in order of the amount of used material)
- A Moveable Feast (The Restored Edition) by Ernest Hemingway
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story by Carlos Baker
- Hemingway’s Paris: A User’s Guide by John Baxter
- Hemingway: The Paris Years by Michael Reynolds
- Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises by Lesley M. M. Blume
- Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935–1961 by Nicholas Reynolds
- Hemingway: The 1930s through the Final Years by Michael Reynolds
- Hemingway in Love: His Own Story by A.E. Hotchner
Other articles (in reverse order of appearance)
- Your Official Guide To The Cafés Of Hemingway’s Paris by Meghan St. Pierre
- A day with Hemingway by Ann Jeanne
- To live, paint and drink in Montparnasse
- A Paris walk with Hemingway by Joshua
- Hemingway in Paris by Ann Jeanne
- How to Do Paris Like Ernest Hemingway by Lauren Paley
- Hemingway’s Favorite Parisian Cafes
- A Moveable Feast! Self-Guided Hemingway Tour, Paris by Elisa
- Explore the Literary History of Paris by Janet Somerville
- A Journey through Hemingway’s Paris by Robert Wheeler
- Hemingway’s Paris
- A Guide to Hemingway’s Paris by Natasha Geiling
- The Hemingway Map of Paris
- Hemingway’s Paris by Mark Coggins
- Ernest Hemingway’s Paris — In The Footsteps Of History
- Why Paris is forgetting Ernest Hemingway by Hugh Schofield
- Hemingway’s Paris
- Hemingway in Paris — a Walking Tour by Tom Brosnahan
- Walk like the Man: An Englishman trails an American in Paris by Michael Palin
- A Café Crème at La Closerie (continue) by Robert F. Burgess
- Hemingway’s Paris: part 1, part 2, part 3 by Ian C. Mills
- Hemingway’s Paris
- Hemingway In Paris — Boxing
Take a look at my other related articles: Paris in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Hemingway in Spain.
