Hemingway's stomping grounds

Both Dianny and I recently read "A Moveable Feast," Ernest Hemingway's memoir of his life in Paris with his first wife Hadley, which was published posthumously in 1964, and "The Paris Wife," a fictional version of Hemingway's early life in Paris with Hadley, written by Paula McLain from Hadley's point of view. We enjoyed both books so much we decided to go see a bit of the neighborhoods in which they lived. Of course, you don't need to read these books to tour Hemingway's old haunts. There are dozens of websites and maps that show you every place in Paris, real and fictional, that he ever set foot in. So we avoided them  and decided to set our own path—or maybe it was just our excuse to start by visiting Amorino, another great ice cream store in Paris that makes beautiful "flowers" of gelato on cones.

We got a little off-course and ended up running into yet another very old church, Saint Jacques du Haut Pas, built around 1630. It seems that every church in Paris is either one of the oldest churches in Paris or it has one of the biggest pipe organs. This one was built on Rue Saint Jacques, a main road of medieval Paris and the starting point for pilgrims on the Way of Saint James, the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Down the street is the Oceanographic Institute, which has been designated a National Heritage Site of France.

We stayed on the narrow Rue Saint Jacques and then took Rue de l'Estrapade, where we ran into a couple of quaint little squares.

When the Hemingways arrived in Paris in December, 1921, they lived in a little apartment on Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, near the Place de la Contrescarpe, which we finally found after meandering a bit around the neighborhood.

Just steps from the Place de la Contrescarpe is #74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. There's a plaque on the wall celebrating the fact that Hemingway lived there with Hadley, and that the neighborhood, which he truly loved, was the birthplace of his work and his style. The plaque also says Hemingway had a good relationship with his neighbors, especially with the owner of the bal-musette, the public dance hall next door.

The two-room apartment was on the fourth floor, and Hemingway described it as a miserable but gay place, with "no hot water and no inside toilet facilities except an antiseptic portable container that was not uncomfortable to anyone who was used to a Michigan outhouse."

Not far from there, while staying at 71 rue de Cardinal Lemoine, James Joyce completed "Ulysses." Hemingway and Joyce were drinking buddies in Paris.

Hemingway frequently visited Gertrude Stein, a great artistic influence, at her Rue de Fleurus studio, across the Jardin du Luxembourg. "It was easy to get into the habit of stopping in at 27 Rue de Fleurus for warmth and the great pictures and the conversation," he wrote.

In 1923, after Hadley got pregnant with Bumby, the Hemingways went to Toronto for a year, and returned to Paris when Bumby was about six months old. They moved into an apartment on the second floor at #113 Rue Notre Dame des Champs, in the bohemian Montparnasse neighborhood. It wasn't better than their previous one: no hot water, again, and no electric lighting, and across the courtyard was a sawmill that filled their apartment with sawdust that seeped under the doors and windowsills.

Unfortunately #113 no longer exists. The building was incorporated into the Ecole Alsacienne, a famous Parisian school. (In fact, much of this area is home to schools and universities.)

In "A Moveable Feast" Hemingway described walking out of his building and cutting through the back door of a boulangerie as a shortcut up to the Boulevard du Montparnasse. He was probably on his way to Closerie des Lilas, a favorite with the American expat community, which was very close to his apartment. Those very steps and door still exist and still open into the back of a boulangerie on Boulevard du Montparnasse. The shortcut is still used by neighbors, and there's an image of Hemingway on the glass door at the top of the stairs.

La Closerie des Lilas became one of his favorite cafes and places to write. He wrote, "The only decent café in our neighborhood was La Closerie des Lilas, and it was one of the best cafés in Paris. It was warm in the winter and the terrace was lovely in the spring and fall..." Dianny and I stopped in for coffee. Indeed the terrace is lovely, as is the whole place. It's now an upscale cafe, restaurant, and bar, and nobody writes there anymore.

Right next to it is Hemingway's "old friend," the statue of Michel Ney, one of the original 18 Marshals of France designated by Napoleon I.

  

Nearby, at the corner of Boulevard Montparnasse and Boulevard Raspail are Le Dôme, Le Select, La Rotonde, and La Coupole, all very popular places at the time and which Hemingway also visited and partied at.

We ended up coming back another day and having a wonderful lunch at the emblematic La Coupole, which was popular with artists and where "Tout Paris" used to meet and dance in the ballroom down in the basement.