![]() The second must-see nearby is the Luxembourg Gardens which is a popular local hang-out for local families. ![]() Of course, you can include this visit with a stroll on the Blvd. ![]() Celebrating the senses these tapestries are absolutely worth a short visit, even if you don't also see the ancient roman areas. But the tapestries inside are a special treat. Built on ancient Roman thermal baths and later a mansion, the building is impressive. One is the Cluny with it's Museum of the Middle Ages (MUsee National du Moyen Age) and the tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. Especially if you want a great experience without the tourist rabble. It's fine to see the major Paris attractions but if a day permits, don't miss two left bank attractions while visiting. Montparnasse Cemetary was the final resting place for some of them, but you need half a day to grave crawl and Tour Montparnasse is open day and night to visitors. Next to La Place de la Contrescarpe where George Orwell lived briefly and wrote Down and Out in Paris and London and rue Mouffetard a living proof of the medieval market. Expand further towards Panteon to see the tombs of the french writers, poets and politicians, then to the medieval Sorbonne University and the grim reminder of the students demos in the 1960s that put a blot on its intellectual landscape briefly. Many of the digs, flats and houses have plaques to say who had lived or died there. Some of these people resided in Montparnasse, Odeon or Jardin du Luxembourg and met up to discuss politics, literature or simply exchange their views over a cup of coffe or a drink and a guloise with the exception of Degas and Wilde who had no choice but to spend their remaining years in poverty. My apologies for leaving out many others who deserved to be remembered. Blvd St Germain on the other hand has been linked with the writers/artists/thinkers/politicians/singers/philosophers/actors for over two centuries: Le Pre aux Clercs, Brassarie Lipp, Le Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots are associated with Jean Paul Sartre,Simone de Beauvoir, Bergerac,Hemmingway, Camus, Gide, Duras Proust, Balzac,Oscar Wilde, Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Picasso, Matisse, Henry Miller, Georgius, Kiki, Breton, Dali, Nina Hamnet, Orwell, Modigliani, Lenin, Trotsky, Erik Satie, Man Ray,Cocteau, Beckett, Joyce, Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Rivera, Russo,Maddox Ford, Alice B Toklas Duchamp, Dali, Degas,Giacometti and Slyvia Beech the owner of Shakespeare & Company Book Shop made famous by the beat generation American writers like Kerouac,Ginsberg and Burroughs in the 1960s. Turn into Blvd St Michel by the fountain and statue of St Michel with its bohemian atmosphere day and night there are middle eastern restaurants, brassaries, french bistros, fast food joints, cafes and is the main haunts of the students from the Sorbonne nearby. Stop and check out or secondhand books posters and souvenirs sold by all kinds of sellers - from the intellectuals to the almost down and outs. I started my walk from Eiffel Tower on the left bank of the river, observing many famous sights as possible in a day and finishing in the Latin Quarter: one can't fail to spot Les Invalides where Napoleon is entombed, the belle epoque Paris-Orleans railway station now a museum of modern art,the gothic Notre Dame Cathedral and many embellished bridges linking left with right bank over the river. La Rive Gauche is situated on the south bank of the river Seine. Visiting Paris in 2013 I decided to do the left bank on foot.
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