Rue Monge

Today I walked along Rue Monge on the 5th arrondissement. This is the second time I passed this long street in the right end of Paris Latin quartier. Rue Monge is one of those street that, if you're a tourist in Paris for a week, you would not have come across it, however if you've stayed long enough but not as long as visiting the country towns (like me), then you might start to explore the city like a true left-bank Parisien :)

Existing from Metro Cardinal Lemoine and turning its similar named street, you would see the old apartment of Ernest Hemingway. The area is still very much quiet and very peaceful.

Named after a scholar, Gaspard Monge, my first impression of the name Monge sounds like a street that has rows and rows of food, I guess I was just being silly because another french word, mange is another French term 'to eat'. Anyway, the real reason I wanted to spend my Easter Monday walking around Rue Monge, is because, the first time I walked here, I felt really calm and serene. I don't know why, maybe it's because it's very close to the Mosque de Paris which is the biggest grandest mosque (very beautiful architecture too) or to the Arenes de Lutece, one of last remaining amphitheatre from the Roman period.


Or maybe the fact that Hemingway used to live around here. That seems to justify it better.

Time seems to stand still for a moment, and you would see rows and rows of Parisian hausmanian buildings still in its state of glory with little balcony filled with pots of greens and the afternoon sun blazing away.


I could hear an apartment listening loudly to beautiful Norah Jones songs and no one seem to argue otherwise.

Les Petits Ecoliers. Yes you are very small.

The only open flower shop and Boulangerie on Rue Monge today.

A-Ha. Caught another one of you around Saint-Germain. Where else but you...