Use Google Earth to prepare your parisian trip

Once downloaded, install it then launch the application Google Earth.
To view each of the following places, just use the 2 numbers associated.
for exemple, to see the eiffel tower copy and paste, in the Google Earth's search bar, this numeric adress :  48.858 2.294


What make Saint Germain des Pres so famous:

Saint Germain des Pres

The church :

The church Saint Germain des Prés is today the oldest church of Paris. It belonged to the famous abbey of Saint Germainwhich was founded into 543 by the Merovingian king Childebert.

Returning  from a campaign in Spain, full with the treasure of the church of Tolède, Childebert decided with Germain, the bishop of Paris, to base a large abbey on the left bank of the Seine. The king gave the grounds with  the mills and the serfs, and future Saint Germain entrusted them to the monks of the  St Basile order. Germain gave them also the exemption, the right to exert an independent justice from the bishop. 

The first  Merovingian kings decided to be  bury there in the dedicated St Vincent basilica, beside the hunting fields, where the body of Saint Germain rested : Childebert and its wife Ultrogothe, Chilpéric and Frédégonde, Clothaire II and Bertrade, Chilpéric II and Bilihilde, Clovis and Mérovée, children of Chilpéric.    

The French revolution destroyed the abbey. Part of the massacres of September took place in the prison. The news of the arrival of  troops of  all the kings of  Europe to crush the Parisian revolution caused a riot against all the supposed antirevolutionary suspects: there perished Montmorin, Reding, Rulhières, Maillé, Rohan-Chub, Saint-Marc, Maussabré, etc… Of monks and  nobles , in all two hundred people. In the forgotten church, one stored saltpetre. This one ends up exploding. The saltpetre projected on two side towers involved their demolition in 1821. Of all only one tower remains. 

The Saint Germain des Pres District:

The district which surrounds the abbey became famous whereas its mother abbey and its dependences gradually disappeared.  It is for a long time a district of  books, cafés  and  art shops. 

Encyclopaedists met in the café Landelle, street of Buci,  or at the Procope café which always exists. In the same way,  the future revolutionists Marat, Danton, Guillotin lived in the district. 

In front of the church, three coffees became famous during the 20th century. In the brewery 'Lipp' meet journalists,  actors and politicians like  François Mitterrand. At the “Deux Magots” and the “Flore”,  are rather writers and  artists. Apollinaire, Rémy de Gourmont, and Charles Maurras often came to the Flore. Later,  the existentialists and their friends  met there : Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Prévert, Juliette Gréco, Giacometti, Jean Genet… Others as Boris Vian were going to dance and play Jazz in the cellars of the street of Rennes.