The fresco in this photo (above) is at the north end of the Rue de la Gaîté, at the corner of Boulevard Edgar Quinet, where a popular ice cream shop attracts long lines of customers. As the name implies, the Rue de la Gaîté has always been a place of Read More …
There has been a theater on this site on the Rue de la Gaîté since 1817, and the present Théâtre Montparnasse dates from 1886. Note that the ornate nineteenth century façade includes two lovely caryatids, statues of half-naked women supporting the roof with their heads. The theater was renovated in Read More …
Here’s a view of Paris from the top of the Montparnasse Tower (Tour Montparnasse), looking northwest towards the competition. At 210 meters, the Montparnasse Tower is the tallest building in Paris — not the tallest structure, just the tallest building. (The tallest structure is the Eiffel Tower with 300 meters.) Read More …
Montparnasse Cemetery, with a surface area of 19 hectares, is the second largest cemetery in Paris. It is located in southern Paris and was opened in 1924. When you come in at the main entrance, at 3 Boulevard Edgar Quinet, there are some laminated cemetery maps hanging by strings on Read More …
The meeting point for this guided walking tour (in French) was the Métro station Notre-Dame des Champs. This is a small station with only one entrance, so there was no danger of waiting at the wrong one. When I arrived, people asked me if I was the guide, which of Read More …
“SPAM” does not necessarily mean the same in French as in English. Although French computer-users may know the English word SPAM meaning unwanted junk e-mails, in French the letters S.P.A.M. are also used as the abbreviation for the Société Parisienne d’Animation et de Manifestation, a society that organizes street markets Read More …
Antoine Bourdelle (1861–1929) was a French sculptor who lived and worked in this house and atelier in the Montparnasse district of Paris. Like the atelier of his friend and teacher Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) — and like the atelier of his younger colleague Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967) — Bourdelle’s atelier has been Read More …
In the summer of 2014, just in time for the centenary of the Great War, a huge black-and-white fresco was installed in a long tunnel in the Métro station Montparnasse-Bienvenüe in Paris. The fresco was 132 meters long and 4.70 meters tall. It consisted of thousands of detailed drawings by Read More …