Bordeaux and Palmiers

Paris is a city that is still alive with history: every street has ten million stories, most of which remain hidden. However, there are several places in Paris whose stories are a bit less well-known, and it can be fun to stop by and see them.

1. Les Deux Magots
6, Place Saint Germain des Pres
6th arrondissement

Travel guides publish the fact that this is the café where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir met to drink coffee and write. However, what is often not included in this information is that it is also the place where Sartre helped to plan the infamous students’ revolution of May 1968.

2. The Ritz Bar
15, Place Vendome
1st arrondissement

Rumor has it that Ernest Hemingway stormed this bar at the Ritz Hotel armed with a handgun at the end of the Second World War and personally liberated the bar and its patrons from the Nazis. After the liberation, he apparently ordered a round for all present.

3. Harry’s Bar
5, rue Daunou
2nd arrondissement

Although Harry’s is famously the birthplace of the celebrated morning cocktail, the Bloody Mary, the bar also claims to get the US election results right every year by means of a straw poll.

4. Shakespeare and Company
37, rue Bucherie
5th arrondissement

This bookshop in the Latin Quarter has been home to many a wandering writer throughout the years: the owner and founder, George Whitman, used to live in the attic and allow such writers as Allen Ginsberg (and, legend has it, any American traveler with nowhere to sleep) to come stay a few nights.

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