Off the beaten track in Paris – Part 1

I’ve been to Paris once every year since I was 17, I adore French wine and my room is plastered with those clichéd old French adverts for Martini Rosso (which I justify by declaring that I actually drink it). You could say that I’m something of a Francophile. But Paris will never get old for me, even though I’ve ‘done’ all the sights. In my two articles I’m going to pick out my favourite bits of Paris - which aren’t Notre-Dame or the Louvre.

The Rue Mouffetard Ah, Parisian nightlife. I can tell you that Parisian clubs are sleazy places, worse than Ziggy’s on a Saturday night. Which is why I prefer to spend the evening barring, and there’s no better place than the Rue Mouffetard, a long street in the 5th arrondissement lined with cocktail bars (métro station Place Monge). ‘Happy Hours’ in Paris are incredibly generous, and none more so than in the unambiguously-named Student Bar, where the ‘hour’ in question is actually from 5pm to 10pm, and the cocktails are €4.50. One thing about this bar: my friends and I have never failed to meet someone interesting, whether it be vain (and hot) waiters taking photos of themselves with our camera, or French students trying to practise their English on us. This is our favourite bar, but there are plenty of others along the same road, and a useful crêperie opposite to soak up all of those Bellinis…

Hemingway’s House…and Other Literary Landmarks Well, it can’t all be drinking. (Although it’s worth a try). How can an English student resist all of that literary history permeating the very streets of Paris? Luckily for me, I’ve managed to combine the aforementioned drinking with a desultory tour of Paris’ literary hotspots. This is helped by the fact that writers, artists and expats in the 20th century (Hemingway, Sartre, Stein, Fitzgerald, the Beats, Joyce) drank like fish, and tended to congregate at various watering holes on the Left Bank. So as a starting point, we can cross the Place de la Contrescarpe from our convenient bar stool in the Student Bar towards 74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, where we gaze up at the cheap room that Hemingway and his wife Hadley rented in the poverty-stricken days of the Lost Generation.

Other locations of interest would be Gertrude Stein’s house on 27 rue de Fleurus (conveniently near the Café des Flores – un kir, anyone?); Sartre and de Beauvoir’s graves in the Cimetière du Montparnasse (where a sudden downpour left me and my friends running to the cosy Raspail Vert café for a vin chaud – “Damn the philosophers” was I think the phrase used); or Émile Zola’s final resting place in the Panthéon, near a lovely café where you’ll need a coffee after all that drinking.

Shakespeare and Co One last bookish location, I promise! Shakespeare and Co, founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, was an English bookshop where Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce were amongst the eminent customers. You can still go to the old location at 12 rue de l’Odéon, where a plaque marks its colourful history. But just opposite the towers of Notre-Dame, on 37 rue de la Bucherie, is the bookshop in its modern glory, still endeavouring to stay true to the original ideals of its founder. Poke around the piles and piles of books, go upstairs to compose a miniature masterpiece on the old typewriter, tinkle the ivories on their out-of-tune piano, or sit in the reading room looking out over the Seine to the spires of Notre-Dame with a well-thumbed book in hand. This is a true haven amidst the tourist attractions of Paris. And if you buy a book there, you get a cool little stamp inside it, too.

Parc de Belleville Here’s a trick for you. Want to see the glittering light show of the Eiffel Tower at night but without the crowds and persistent hawkers of illuminating Eiffel Tower keyrings? Head to métro station Couronnes. Turn left as you come out and head up the hill to the Parc de Belleville, a gorgeous, tranquil garden that looks out over the Parisian skyline. Plus a cheeky €2 euro bottle of vino from the nearby supermarché and a compliant boyfriend or girlfriend, and you have a romantic little picnic à deux.

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