"Natalie Barney's Literary Salon in Paris" Top 5 Page for this destination Literary Paris Tip by BeatChick

Natalie Barney's literary salons (20, rue Jacob ~ 6th arrondissement) rivaled Gertrude Stein's. Due to the long-lived enmity between James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, Joyce opted to hang out here instead. This was also the preferred salon for poet, Ezra Pound.

In the garden there is reputed to be a well leading to a tunnel under the Seine to the Louvre but the garden was locked & overgrown; I could see nothing, not even the famed Greek Temple.

Just a few doors down at 10 rue Jacob is American food critic Patricia Wells' apartment in Paris; this is where she holds her cooking classes (reserve WELL in advance). Around the corner on rue Bonaparte is the divine salon de thé, Ladurée, which serves the most wondrous macarons (not those hard coconut-infused macaroons one finds in the US) in a plethora of flavours.

You can read more about Natalie Barney, this story and expatriates in Arlen J. Hansen's inimitable Expatriate Paris: A Cultural & Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920s.

Photo: April 2003 & Feb 2006

Website: http://www.natalie-barney.com/

• Updated Mar 16, 2006
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