In the first three decades of this century, Montparnasse was a thriving artistic and literary centre. Many modern painters and sculptors, novelists and poets, the great and the unknown, were drawn to the area. Its ateliers, conviviality and bohemian lifestyle made it a magnet for genius, some of it French, much of it foreign.
The great epoch ended with WWII, and change continued with the destruction of many of the ateliers and the construction of the soaring Tour Montparnasse, Paris' tallest office tower, which heralded the modern quartier.
Montparnasse, although mostly overlooked by everyone today, still can live up to its name. Mount Parnassus was the mountain dedicated by ancient Greeks to Apollo, god of poetry ,music and beauty. Although people such as Picasso, Hemingway, Cocteau, Giacometti, Matisse and Modigliani are gone, it's still a vibrant albeit less frequented part of town.
A fantastic place to visit - one that actually forces you to remember the heyday of the quarter, it the Montparnasse cemetery. It is full of the most interesting monuments and is a peaceful retreat in the bustle of the city (especially on another hot day like today!). Some notables buried here are the likes of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone Beauvoir, the existentialist couple, Hollywood Gamour girl with a tragic life, Jean Seberg, romantic poet, Charles Baudelaire, Sculptors Henri Laurens and Brancusi, and that French bad boy, Serge Gainsbourg (je t'aime, je t'taime, ahhh ouiiiii, je t'aime he breathed heavily into the microphone with Brigitte Bardot).
Anyway, I don't think enough people visit this quarter with its lack of fancy public monuments and fountains -and that's a shame, because there's something interesting to be found here...
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