A moveable feast

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a Moveable feast” wrote Hemingway to a friend in 1950. To artists, Paris was the most alive city in the world. James Joyce called it “the last of the human cities”. Living was cheap and they could mingle with other artists in the cafés of the left bank such as Les Deux Magots, Brasserie Lipp, Le Café de la Mairie and Le Café de Flore.

The years Hemingway spent in Paris “with time to read, where there was a way of living well” were like having a great treasure given to him and formed a necessary part of his education. His novels are filled with the places and people he knew in Paris. The experiences he collected here were transformed into his greatest writings.

With this walk, I pay homage to the spirit of young Hemingway, the Paris of the Twenties and to what Gertrude Stein called the “lost generation”.

The churches of Saint Germain des Prés, Saint Sulpice, Sainte Geneviève, the University of the Sorbonne, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Panthéon, all evoke events from French history. Entering into silent, magical, shadowy, interior courtyards is always a surprise.

My gratitude goes to Pat & John N. for whom I initially created this walk which in its original version lasted 12 hours. Pat’s sweet voice reading extracts from Hemingway’s book A Moveable Feast still floats in the Parisian air.