Paris Walks Part 2 - Two Cafés on the Boulevard Saint Germain

When we’re in Paris – we walk. Apart from being a little trepidatious of using the Metro, we have lots of time and everything is just so beautiful, I wouldn’t want to miss it by being underground.

I’d done a lot of reading about Paris in the 20’s. Hemingway’s "A Moveable Feast", "The Autobiography of Alice B, Toklas", Morley Callaghan’s "That Summer in Paris" And I am also a big enthusiast of Kiki, Man Ray, Foujita and the gang. Some of their favourite places to drink and write are in Montparnasse, just south of today’s walk. But two famous restaurants are on today’s trail.


Café De Flore - 172 Boulevard St. Germain

Historically, this belle époque café was the former hangout of big thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and the Existentialists and André Breton and the Surrealists, plus Trotsky, Apollinaire and writers like Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote,and Lawrence Durrell. This landmark café is noted for people-watching from the terrasse and coffee, hot chocolate, croissant, welsh rarebit, quiche, croque-monsieur can be enjoyed for a inflated price. French intelligentsia and film star still stops in. Upstairs, play readings are held on Mondays and philosophy discussions on the first Wednesday of the month, both at 8pm, in English.

They’re open from 7:00 in the morning to 1:30 the following morning. Their website and e-mail seems to be defunct, but they can be reached through the phone:

telephone: 33 (0)1 45 48 55 26

Les Deux Magots - 6 place Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Found just next door, Les Deux Magots is the rival to The Cafe de Flore. This is another of Paris’s most famous cafes. Oscar Wilde frequented Les Deux Magots. Maybe he conjured up The Happy Prince while sipping a wine. Maybe Saint Exupery imagined his Little Prince here. Sartre, Hemingway and Apollinaire patronized the place and Dora Maar met Picasso here. Taking its name from the wooden statues of the Confuscian wise men which still oversee the room, these two “magots” are the only remains left from the old silk shop that in 1885 became a bar. Salads, eggs and cheese plates, deserts and sandwiches made from that criminally expensive Polaine bread are available. The Deux Magots literary prize has been awarded to a French novel every year since 1933.

They’re open from 7:30 in the morning to 1:30 the next day.
phone 33 (0)1 45 48 55 25

Paris Walks

I was looking through my files, cleaning them up a little, and I came across a kind of a "note to self": walks to take in Paris during our 2003 trip and personal "must sees"

I thought it was post-worthy if I tarted it up a bit. Unfortunately I can only get Blogger to insert pictures at the top of a post so today's entry will be top-heavy. I'll be sure to include plenty of links.

We stayed at the Hotel du College de France at 7 rue Thenard, in the 5th Arrondissement south of Boulevard St. Germain and east of rue St. Jacques. It was a really great, clean, central hotel. I was a little disappointed that after months of planning we were put in an inside-facing room directly above the laundry. But we were travelling with our son and no 3-bedded rooms had a street view. I think we paid 90 Euro in 03. Today it would be closer to 120 Euros which is still very good.



Here's my first installment things to do around the district and beyond.

Evening Strolls


Rue de la Huchette & Rue du Chat qui Peche (narrowest in Paris)

Rue de la Huchette and the entire surrounding neighborhood is dotted with small, tempting cafes and night spots, some at street level, others in cellars and others above. Slightly edgy street artists abound. And travellers like you and me are beckoned by the hosts and hostesses to come in and try their wares. Unable to commit, we stuck with chestnut crepes and shwarma with frites. Known for its collection of Greek restaurants we witnessed the stereotypical shattering of plates after a satisfying meal. The Rue de la Huchette, and its adjacent streets are typical 12th C Paris. This is shabby chic like no North American can recreate.

Coming in at just under 6 feet wide or 1.8 m is Rue du Chat qui Peche. The Street of the Fishing Cat was named after the illustration on a shop's shingle. It wasn't really much to see. A "been there, done that" moment, but the name is so charming. Apparently when it was built in 1540 the street abruptly ended at the Seine. I'm glad things have changed or we would have gotten very wet getting to our next destination ...

Shakespeare & Company - 37 Rue de la Bûcherie

Shakespeare and Company has such a reputation. Although not Sylvia Beach's bookstore on rue de l'Odeon, which hosted James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway, George Whitman's shop at 37 Rue de la Bûcherie has continued the legacy of Beach’s Shakespeare and Company, inviting readers and encouraging new writers. Chock-a-block with used books, the shop is a bibliophiles dream. Evidence of the writers-in-residence was plain when I found myself in an alcove with someone's shaving apparatus.

Another English bookstore in this part of the Left Bank is

The Abbey Bookshop

Turning the corner onto the rue de la Parcheminerie, I was pleased to see the Canadian flag outside number 29. The Abbey Bookshop had a sister store on Harbord Street in Toronto. I was pleased to see that someone was living the dream.

More later.

The Patio

Wrong! - Ontario Allows Mixed-Martial Arts

Yes, my province will do anything for a buck. Ontario now  reminds me of Bartertown in Mad Mel's movie Beyond Thunderdome where the call of "two men enter, one man leaves" was frequently heard.

Mixed Martial Arts sounds sort of Zen but it's not. Its other moniker is Ultimate Fighting. It's blood, broken teeth, broken bones, broken noses. Pitting two neanderthals together to thrash it out, Mixed-Martial arts sticks to the no-hold barred concept literally. Guys with no head gear beat each other stupid until the mat is spotted with blood, just like the corner butcher-shop.

I hate this. I thought fake wrestling was a bad enough influence on kids - now we have to deal with this organization as an arbiter of taste for the lowest common denominator.

Circus Maximus can't be far behind. Bring on the tigers. Just keep me on the other side of the moat.

The Library

My folks, a librarian and a library technician, would have loved this. I think it's a clever spoof of an already clever ad.

It's Not Easy Being Green

I found this article by Jane Taber in today's Globe and Mail. I'd never heard of Georges Laraque before but his story is so interesting.

Tough guy Laraque just a gentle green giant

Jane Taber

Georges Laraque, the 6-foot-3, 260-pound hockey enforcer, remembers sobbing like a baby in his Boston hotel room after watching Earthlings, a movie about cruelty to animals and human dependence on animals for food and the economy.

He was on a road trip, had nothing else to do and decided to watch the film, which had been recommended by a friend.

That was more than a year ago. And it was where he started along his path to veganism and a concern for the environment. It led him to the Green Party; he joined the party in February and last week became a new deputy co-leader. His is a voluntary position.

“I watched it and ‘oh my God’ … and then that was it. I had to stop [eating meat.] I remember I was about to order room service and I was like ‘um, what am I going to eat?’’’

The hotel didn’t have a vegetarian menu, so he ended up going to a corner store and buying a bunch of broccoli. His fridge is now full of it.

Mr. Laraque, 33, is larger than life. He loves Green Party leader Elizabeth May, noting that her passion persuaded him to take on his new role.

As someone who is well-known, as well as being a Quebecker who has lived out West, she figured he could have an impact on the process.

His message? He wants to raise awareness of the Green Party and environmental issues. More than that, he wants Canadians to get involved in the process and not take their vote for granted.

Since becoming deputy leader, he has done about 20 interviews a day. Ms. May may be on to something.
Well-spoken, enthusiastic and highly entertaining, Mr. Laraque is, however, full of contradictions.

Describing himself as “passionate and sensitive,” he was the guy whose role it was to punch out other players during his 12 years in the NHL.

He fought, he says, because it “was my job.” It was never something he liked to do.
During his career (he was also a solid forward) he played for Edmonton, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and the Montreal Canadiens.

Last season did not end well for him as the Canadiens sent him home in January, announcing in June they had bought out the final season of his $4.5-million contract.

But Mr. Laraque is as unlikely a hockey player as he is a politician. Born in Montreal, his parents left Haiti when they were in their 20s. Mr. Laraque was an unusual face in a game that does not attract a lot of minorities. He experienced racism on the ice.

His immigrant parents, he says, suffered at the rink, bundled up “like Eskimos” and hating the cold.
Spiritual, community-minded, Mr. Laraque devotes a lot of his time to charity.

Along with the National Hockey League Players’ Association, he has raised more than $1-million for a children’s hospital in Haiti, a cause he took up after the devastation of the earthquake last January. He wants to raise $4-million.

It has always been his ambition to save the planet, he said. “I was always spiritual and ever since I made the NHL, I always told God that with [being well-known] I would try to do great things.”

But with fame and success comes criticism, such as recently being taken to task in the blogosphere for driving a gas-guzzling truck while embracing environmental causes.

To that, he says, he is planning to buy a hybrid truck and besides, he maintains that a truck-driving vegan is better on the environment than a Prius-driving carnivore.

“When I see people criticize me because I joined the party, I actually feel sorry for them,” he says. “I am trying to make the environment better for them.”

But he is not trying to run for office.

He has causes that he doesn’t want to give up yet – the Haitian hospital, his lectures on the Earthling film and his vegan restaurant in Montreal. His mother thought he had joined a “sect” when she found out he was vegan; the Haitian culture, he says, is all about meat.

As well, he thinks he has a lot to learn before trying to win office.

“... environmental and animal issues is not enough ... if I got into a debate with even a rookie in politics, I would get eaten alive.”