Saint-Germain free walking tour

From Shakespeare and co to Café de Flore

90 min / FREE TOUR - TIP-SUPPORTED
This tour is not running at the moment. Check our Paris walking tours calendar

booking is required

What's in our tour?

Our Saint-Germain and the River free walking tour hits Paris’ top literary spots: from Shakespeare and Co, to Café de Flore and Deux Magots.

Everywhere in-between, we run into celebrated landmarks of Parisian literary life. Into picturesque alley ways, into quaint streets filled with peace. And into respected intellectual movie houses. Saint-Germain is where smart and beautiful walk hand in hand.

Your guide will advise best nightlife spots: café de Flore, café de la mairie, to start. And then: rue des cannettes, la Rhumerie, Castel, and so on.

You will learn why jazz, art-house cinema, and politics, are all so popular in Saint-Germain.

You will find out what Paris did for Hemingway. Why Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir fought it out with Albert Camus in Saint Germain. And how during WWII a printing press of Saint Germain became a production centre for forged passports – and soon for books against Nazism.

Your guide will of course engage you in Saint-Germain’s favorite past-time: the fine art of conversation. What makes Parisians tick? What do they think about your country? And what’s hot this week – and not so hot ?

Saint-Germain is the best nightlife district to give your night in Paris a head start.

Highlights

  • Café Procope, Shakespeare and Company, Café Flore and Deux Magots: the cafés where coffee and literature bond
  • Paris history: books to resist the nazis, WW II, freedom through jazz, and the original burial place of the Kings of France
  • The studios of Picasso and Delacroix, and the birth-place of Guernica: Picasso’s greatest work?
  • Valuable insider’s tips: what to do, where to go. Hot clubs, fun cafés, and authentic restaurants

Where and when?

This tour is not running at the moment. Check our Paris walking tours calendar

We start at 77 rue Galande, outside “Odette”.

This tour ends near Saint-Germain-des-Prés metro station (line 4).

Booking is required. We advise large groups to book a private tour. In the interest of all guests, we reserve the right to accommodate or to turn down large groups.

Why take this tour?

Shakespeare and Company hosted the English-language residents of Saint-Germain and Paris: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce – under the patronage of Gertrude Stein. Hemingway claimed he played a boxking match with Fitzgerald there – Hemingway was very critcial of Scott’s wife Zelda.

Café Flore and Deux Magots were home to Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus.

And Café Procope is where Voltaire, along with Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, honed in the concepts of freedom and human rights that lead to the French Revolution.

Oscar Wilde died in Saint Germain. And Tennessee Williams and Willam Faulkner’s plays live in the art movie houses of Saint Germain.

To see more on this walking tour, we do not spend time going inside each building.

HOT DAY SPECIAL: We walk in the shade as much as possible and every tour makes frequent stops for water. EXCLUSIVELY WITH DISCOVER WALKS.

Price

This is a free walking tour of Marais. You pay the guide what you want at the end of the tour.

Booking is required.

Join the tour meeting point 5 minutes before start.

If you wish to book this tour, use the booking button on the right side of this page.

Privatize this tour

Families, groups of friends, and school groups often book a private guide for this tour. From €125, depending on group size and tour duration.

Privatize this tour

Other information

This tour of Saint-Germain is wheelchair accessible.

Discover Walks St Germain tour

Starts

We meet at 77 rue Galande, outside “Odette”

> See the Google Map > Print the map

When

This tour is not running at the moment. Check our Paris walking tours calendar

Metro station

Closest metro stations: Cluny and Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) and Saint-Michel (line 4)

Additional information

All tours are in English

Look for our distinct pink vests

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