Gertrude Stein's Residence, 1904 - 1937

In late 1996 or early 1997, in anticipation of and as preparation for my first trip to Paris, I read Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. In the second chapter entitled “My Arrival in Paris,” Stein (as Toklas) details the route the two of them took from the center of the city to Pablo Picasso’s studio in Montmartre. She writes,

“We first went to see Picasso … . Picasso now never likes to go to Montmartre, … [b]ut at this time he was in and of Montmartre and lived in the rue Ravignan.

“We went to the Odéon and there got into an omnibus … .”

I determined right then and there that I would retrace their steps, and that during our stay in Paris, I would also seek out sites relevant to Stein and some of the members of her salon at her home at 27, Rue de Fleurus. The first step, as I saw it, was to find this very address. We did so on September 23, 1997. I posed outside, clutching the pseudo-autobiography to my bosom. Two days later, we would launch our trek from Place de l’Odéon to Montmartre.

[For Step Two of the Gertrude Stein Pilgrimmage, please see my entry at: France > Ile de France > Paris > Montmartre > Place de l’Odéon.] Place De L’Odéon