Cf.: "Salon d'érotisme", Nice 24-26 Sept 2010

The end of our Sat. afternoon Paris stroll.

Luxembourg Gardens:

"Come on girls - 'All work and no play ...' "

Where Sartre "took to pieces" Beauvoir's arguments for what was left of her religious beliefs.

On the way to St. Michel,  I went down this street for a change.

These bloody things have really spoilt Nice; Jerome told me they're on the increase in Paris, and the bikers ride on the pavements.  

Then I went into Rue Laplace (such cultured street names :-) ).

The bike makes the photo - thanks, whoever it was - if only we'd stuck to bikes and there were no motorbikes (OK, I had two when I was young).

I was happy to discover a nice bar in Rue Laplace.

With, perhaps, the next De Beauvoir.

I returned to Paris at the end of October - Place de la Sorbonne

I took a new route from the place I was staying in Gobelins and found that it led me to this popular street.

The street as a gallery.

A more recent cultural icon: "Bang bang"  - "This is the end".

It leads to another street dedicated to a major figure in French culture ...

 and a claim about a famous ex-pat:

I thought this wasn't the address I remembered reading about recently; in fact he lived in Rue Cardinal Lemoine, but he did rent a room in this building to write - later recalling that he had been poor but very happy in Paris.

This, I assume, is a reference to Jacques Prévert, which seems apt:  " il devint un poète populaire grâce à son langage familier et ses jeux de mots." "He became a popular poet, due to his everyday language and play on words."

Then over to St. Germain, saturated in cultural references:

Delacroix (I think he's spotted me).

"The American" in Paris

Another side of American culture ...

and of French culture: "The man who wanted to live his life"

I thought I ought to try the oldest restaurant in Paris, Le Procope, founded in 1686. Luckily I was taken through the main room, full of loud Americans, to a quiet back room where I could think in peace about all the French cultural icons who have dined there: Voltaire, Danton, Robespierre, Marat, and famous visitors such as Benjamin Franklin.

But I was equally happy to find, just across Blvd St. Germain, a tiny bar, not fashionable, nor full of tourists, but with nice low lighting and interesting decor:

"Don't be sad - we'll always have Paris."