Place De L’Odéon

[For Step One of the Gertrude Stein Pilgrimmage, please see my entry at: France > Ile de France > Paris > Gertrude Stein's Residence, 1904 – 1937.]

This stage of the pilgrimmage entailed retracing Gertrude Stein’s and Alice B. Toklas’ route from their home in St.-Germain-des-Prés to Picasso’s early studio in Montmartre, as detailed in Stein’s book The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

Stein writes that at the beginning of their trek, she and Alice B. “went to the Odéon and there got into an omnibus, that is we mounted on top of an omnibus, the nice old horse-pulled omnibuses that went pretty quickly and steadily across Paris and up the hill to the place Blanche.”

The website of the Théâtre de l’Odéon states that it was built to house the Comédie-Française, opening in 1782. [Please see my entry elsewhere about the Comédie-Française, at it’s current location on the Rue Richelieu since 1799.] For travel to Place Blanche, we were faced with having to find an alternative to a horse-pulled omnibus. There were Metro stops at both our points of departure and of arrival. The Metro served us well.

[For Step Three of the Gertrude Stein Pilgrimmage, please see my entry at: France > Ile de France > Paris > Montmartre > Rue Lepic.]