A STROLL FROM SAINT GERMAIN DES PRÈS IN THE AREA SURROUNDING THE HOTEL LOUIS II.



The Saint Germain des Près CHURCH, the oldest church in Paris ... but also CAFES ... BOOKSHOPS ... SHOPS... JAZZ... BISTROTS ... LIFE... BOHEMIA ... PEOPLE HAVING A GOOD TIME ...CINEMAS ... THEATRES ... NIGHT LIFE.


The Hotel Louis II is the sun that shines in the heart of this Paris, vibrant with life.

One hotel façade overlooks the St Sulpice street just 20 yards away from the church and the other gives onto the rue de Condé. The hotel derives its name from Louis II of Condé, Sun King’s cousin, Louis XIV. An eminent soldier, aesthete and philosopher, Condé was a great man and a friend of Molière, Boileau, La Fontaine and Bossuet. The XVth Century houses of Saint Germain des Près are still soaked in the atmosphere of this era.

The musketeers of King Louis XIV, who were made famous by Alexander Dumas, lived very close by – Athos in rue Férou, Aramis in rue Servandoni and Porthos in rue du Vieux Colombier.


In this district filled with publishers and bookshops


Sylvia Beach had opened the Shakespeare and Co bookshop at 12 rue de l’Odéon and Adrienne Monier at number 7.
William Faulker, Henry Miller and Ernest Hemingway loved to hang around in these places in the rue Férou and the Jardin du Luxemburg before taking a seat in the bars of Montparnasse. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived at 58 rue de Vaugirard.

In the forties, Picasso and Cocteau had lunch at Odeon Square. And, several years later, the sound of jazz would entice you into the cellars where people danced to the music of Boris Vian and the songs of Juliette Gréco.

The school of Fine Arts, the art galleries, the Orsay museum and the Haute Couture decoration boutiques express at one and the same time the cultural past of France and its modernness.

The famous cafes, the Flore, the Deux Magots and the Procope (the oldest cafe in Paris) have been home for Romanticism, Impressionism, Existentialism, Surrealism and many others.

Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Picasso, Hemingway, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Jean–Paul Sartre were inspired by these places.



The district of St Germain des Près, birthplace of the intellectual and artistic history of Paris and of France has retained all of his character.


A wind of liberty blows here, with an indescribable village flavour.


“Yes, this is the place to go in order to breathe, dream and draw out time through its endless sensations”
Charles Baudelaire, in his poem “Invitation to the Voyage.”