Montparnasse takes its name from Mount Parnassus, which, according to Greek mythology, was home to the Muses. And sure enough, over the course of the 20th century, this rather dull and poor neighborhood became the center of French bohemian life, drawing painters, photographers, poets and politicians who fed off each other’s energy.
I’ve wanted to write you a walking tour of Montparnasse for a long time, one that would show you where that artistic explosion of the early 20th century actually happened. But every time, some other project got in the way and pushed this one back. First it was the recommended hotels in Paris, then it was the attractions pages or the restaurants pages.
But not long ago, Dr. Orna Liberman published a simply wonderful piece on Amedeo Modigliani and Chaïm Soutine. When I read it, I knew I couldn’t put this project off any longer. I froze everything else I was working on and decided I wasn’t moving on to anything until this walking tour was done.
So I kept my promise, and here it is: a walking tour entirely dedicated to the international bohemian crowd that once lived in Montparnasse.
Instead of a map: under the heading for each stop you’ll find its address, and every address is a link. Click it, and the spot will open right up in Google Maps.
Café La Rotonde
Let’s start our tour outside the Vavin metro station (line 4). We’re standing at the intersection of boulevard Montparnasse and boulevard Raspail. Right next to the metro exit you’ll see Café La Rotonde, which opened in 1910. It’s one of the most famous cafés in Paris, and bohemians of nearly every nationality sat here at one point or another. Who didn’t sit here? The American writer Henry Miller, who wrote “Tropic of Cancer”, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso, and even the Russian Vladimir Lenin. In short, one of the most cosmopolitan spots in early 20th-century Paris.
Balzac’s Statue
boulevard Raspail, at the Vavin intersection
After a little coffee at La Rotonde, cross boulevard Raspail toward Balzac’s statue.
This statue, created by Auguste Rodin in 1891, was rejected by the writers’ society that had commissioned it. According to them, the robed figure (Balzac used to wear a monk’s robe while writing) didn’t look human enough. It took almost 50 years for people to appreciate Rodin’s genius, and the statue wasn’t placed in its current spot until 1939. Today it’s considered one of Rodin’s greatest works.
If you’d like to learn more about the story behind Balzac’s statue, I highly recommend reading Dr. Orna Liberman’s piece Gold and Mud: The Story of Camille Claudel’s Life.
Head back to boulevard Montparnasse and walk west.
Café Le Select
Café Le Select, at 99 boulevard du Montparnasse, opened in 1925 and is named after the Select family, who once owned it. It was one of the first cafés to stay open all night, and it became especially popular among the crowd Hemingway called “ladies of both sexes.”
Henry Miller, who as mentioned spent time at La Rotonde, also loved this café and passed plenty of hours here. If you’d shown up in the 1920s, you might also have run into Luis Buñuel, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century.
From this café, walk along boulevard du Montparnasse until you reach number 102.
Café La Coupole
This café opened in 1927 as a combined café, restaurant and basement dance club. The Communist poet Louis Aragon was a regular here, and it’s where he met his wife, Elsa Triolet, in 1928.
In 1929, the famous photographer Man Ray met Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel here, and they invited him to a screening of their film Un Chien Andalou. The result was the beginning of the end for surrealism as a literary movement and its transformation into a movement in film and the visual arts.
La Coupole was the favorite café not only of the surrealists but also of Picasso, Jean Cocteau, the painter Moïse Kisling, and Alberto Giacometti (the great Renaissance painter, according to a certain satirical news anchor…).
Once you’re done admiring the restaurant’s interior design (and maybe grabbing lunch), continue along boulevard du Montparnasse toward number 108.
Café Le Dôme
Café Le Dôme opened in 1898 and is one of the oldest cafés in Montparnasse. Lenin and Trotsky used to sit here plotting revolution, alongside Henry Miller, Man Ray, and the brilliant playwright Samuel Beckett (“Waiting for Godot”). Hemingway loved the place too, and you can read about it in his book “A Moveable Feast.”
Over the years, the café became an upscale seafood restaurant. You’re welcome to try a cold seafood platter there, or continue on toward rue Delambre.
Rue Delambre: From Tsuguharu Foujita to Francis Bacon
I don’t know of another street in Montparnasse, or in Paris for that matter, where almost every building was once home to or the workplace of some celebrity. Rue Delambre is exactly that kind of street. As you walk along it, you’ll find a plaque on nearly every building noting that some artist lived, wrote, painted, ate, drank or made love there. So let’s walk the street, and I’ll try to point out the most important buildings.
Number 5: Tsuguharu Foujita’s Studio
Between 1917 and 1926, this was the studio of Tsuguharu Foujita, the Japanese painter who came to Paris and spent most of his life there. In his studio he hosted the artists Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm Soutine and Fernand Léger. One of his most famous models was Alice Prin, known as “Kiki de Montparnasse,” who later became the lover of the photographer Man Ray.
Number 9: Isadora Duncan’s Home
Isadora Duncan was one of the most famous dancers in Paris, and her career took her all the way to the Soviet Union. By the time she lived on rue Delambre, she was well past her peak and in serious financial trouble. As she put it: “Things are so bad I have no idea where the next bottle of champagne is coming from…”
While living here, she gave private lessons to Foujita. She died dramatically when her scarf got caught in the wheel of a moving car in Nice.
Number 10: Once Hemingway’s Bar, Now an Italian Restaurant
Today this address is home to the restaurant Auberge de Venise. If you book a table through this link, you can get up to 50% off the menu. In the past, the bar Le Dingo stood here, its name coming from the French slang word “dingue,” meaning crazy.
In 1925, Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald met here for the first time, which led to a friendship lasting years. As a result, Hemingway wrote the introduction to “This Must Be the Place: Memoirs of Montparnasse,” which became required reading for anyone interested in the English-speaking bohemian life of Montparnasse.
Whether or not you decide to eat there, I highly recommend stepping inside to look at the photos of all the bohemians who once sat here. It’s a guaranteed trip down memory lane.
Number 11bis: Sartre and Beauvoir’s Bar
Here stands the bar Rosebud, where the philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to meet during the period when they lived on this street in two separate hotels.
Number 13: Man Ray’s Photography Studio
Today the hotel Villa Modigliani stands here, but its parking lot once held Man Ray’s first photography studio, which he set up when he arrived in Paris in 1927.
Number 15: Grand Hôtel des Écoles
Today the pleasant, solid Hôtel Lenox stands here. But in the past, this was a cheap hotel called Grand Hôtel des Écoles, home to Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of the Dada movement. Henry Miller lived here alone in 1925, and later with his wife between 1928 and 1930.
Number 35: Montparnasse’s Celebrity Hotel
Hôtel Delambre is without a doubt one of the most famous hotels in the area, thanks to the many well-known names who stayed here (and the fact that it’s genuinely a pretty good hotel to begin with).
The first to stay here was the painter Paul Gauguin, in 1891. Later, between 1920 and 1921, André Breton, the founder of surrealism, lived here after he decided to abandon his medical studies and become a poet instead. In Breton’s eyes, Montparnasse was too trivial a neighborhood, and he eventually moved to Montmartre, right as every other artist was making the opposite move.
The next artist to stay at this hotel, in 1927, was Francis Bacon.
From here, head over to boulevard Edgar-Quinet, where you’ll find a colorful street market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
Le Sphinx: Montparnasse’s Famous Brothel
At number 31, the brothel Le Sphinx opened in 1931 and quickly became one of the most lavish, indulgent establishments of its kind in Paris (so indulgent, in fact, that it was the first building in Paris to have air conditioning installed). Henry Miller wrote the advertising copy for the place and was paid in “services” plus a bonus for every new client he brought in.
It might sound strange today, but back then, brothels were a regular part of daily life in Paris, and on opening day the mayor of the 14th arrondissement and his wife even came to honor the place with their presence. And for anyone worried about the welfare of the women who worked there, you’ll be glad to know they received full social benefits, including a three-week annual vacation on the French Riviera…
Like every other brothel in Paris, this one was shut down in 1946 following a law passed by the National Assembly. In the 1970s the building was torn down and replaced with an ugly block, the kind of soulless architecture you’d expect from a depressing outskirts development. From here, move on to number 14 on the same street.
Le Monocle: Paris’s Famous Lesbian Bar
In the basement of number 14 on boulevard Edgar-Quinet stood a very famous lesbian bar called Le Monocle (named for the eyepiece some women wore instead of glasses). Only women in elegant men’s attire, jacket and bow tie, were allowed in.
Once you’re done picturing what an evening here must have looked like, cross the street.
Montparnasse Cemetery
Here you’ll find the entrance to Montparnasse Cemetery, the resting place of quite a few members of the interwar bohemian scene (and plenty of other famous names besides). This cemetery holds so many fascinating graves that it really deserves an article of its own. But for now, feel free to go pay your respects to Sartre and Beauvoir, or visit Man Ray’s grave, whose headstone bears the immortal line “Unconcerned but not Indifferent.”
If you’d like to read more about this cemetery and take a tour of it, check out the article Montparnasse Cemetery: Resting Place of Intellectuals and Artists.
Leave the cemetery toward boulevard Edgar-Quinet and walk toward boulevard Raspail.
Hôtel l’Aiglon: The Hotel of Buñuel and Sartre
Today Hôtel l’Aiglon is a luxurious four-star hotel well worth staying at. In the 1960s, Luis Buñuel lived here, and during his stay he made some of his most famous films, including “Diary of a Chambermaid” and “Belle de Jour.” From his window he could see Montparnasse Cemetery. Buñuel loved the view, which he found calming, but the women he brought up to his room, Catherine Deneuve in particular, were less fond of it.
In June 1961, following an assassination attempt on his life, Jean-Paul Sartre moved here, bringing his mother along and putting her up in the room next to Buñuel’s.
Cross boulevard Raspail, turn right, then left onto rue Campagne-Première.
Rue Campagne-Première: The Artists’ Street
Quite a few artists lived on this street in the late 19th and 20th centuries, drawn by its closeness to their studios on rue du Montparnasse on one side, and to the famous cafés on the other. There are a few buildings here worth stopping to look at.
31bis: Man Ray’s Studio
Man Ray moved into this distinctive building, built in 1911, in 1926 and turned it into his main apartment and studio. Take a look at the beautiful ceramics by Alexandre Bigot. He lived here until 1929 with his model and lover Alice Prin (“Kiki de Montparnasse”).
Number 29: Hôtel Istria
The inexpensive Hôtel Istria still stands here today. Its past guests included Marcel Duchamp, who once put a urinal in a museum and called it art, as well as the painter Moïse Kisling, the photographer Man Ray and his lover, Kiki de Montparnasse.
Passage d’Enfer
This is a small passage connecting the street to boulevard Raspail. In 1871, the poet Arthur Rimbaud lived here, in a room rented for him by the poet Paul Verlaine. From here you can also see other sides of the distinctive building that served as Man Ray’s studio, mentioned earlier.
Number 9: La Cité des Artistes
When the great 1889 World’s Fair (the one during which the Eiffel Tower was built) ended, a developer took over some of the leftover structures and built small studio rooms for artists. Among those who worked here were Modigliani, the American artist James McNeill Whistler, and Giorgio de Chirico.
Walk to the end of the street and turn right onto boulevard du Montparnasse, then cross the street.
La Closerie des Lilas
I decided to end the tour at one of the oldest and most famous cafés in Montparnasse, located at 171 boulevard du Montparnasse.
The place opened in 1847 and originally served as nothing more than a stagecoach stop for carriages heading south. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, La Closerie des Lilas had become the favorite café of Émile Zola, Paul Cézanne, Modigliani, Guillaume Apollinaire, Picasso and others.
But it was Ernest Hemingway who brought the place its greatest fame, essentially turning it into his main office. He wrote some of his most famous books here, including “The Sun Also Rises.” Feel free to take a seat at one of the tables and order yourself something to drink. If you’ve still got some energy left, you can also do the Luxembourg Gardens walking tour, which starts not far from here.
Want to See More of Montparnasse?
- Feel free to retrace your steps and head up the Montparnasse Tower (it’s so tall you won’t have any trouble finding it). From the tower, you can see every spot you’ve visited, plus a stunning view of Paris.
- If you’re looking for more walking tours, check out the article Attractions in the 14th Arrondissement.
- If hunger strikes, check out the recommended restaurants in the 14th arrondissement.
- If you’d like to stay in the Montparnasse neighborhood, check out the pages recommended hotels in the 14th arrondissement and recommended vacation apartments in the 14th arrondissement.
A Few Words About Liran Hotmecher
Liran is an Israeli photographer living in Paris, and he’s responsible for several of the photos you’ve seen in this article. You can find more of Liran’s Paris photography on his website.
Related reading
