The Beat Hotel in Paris: Here We Come

That awesome background is my workbench

I own and have used three of Bill Morgan's excellent guides: The Beat Atlas: A State by State Guide to the Beat Generation in America, The Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City, and The Beat Generation in San Francisco: A Literary Tour.

Now I'm happy to say I own The Beats Abroad: A Global Guide to the Beat Generation, and I'm even happier to say that I am going to get a chance to use it since we are winging our way to France in less than three weeks. Our first stop is Paris, and of course one of our objectives will be to visit The Beat Hotel (9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur), now known as Relais Hôtel du Vieux Paris. Many Beat writers stayed there over the years (with the exception of our boy, Jack). In fact, we have a private walking tour scheduled and The Beat Hotel is where we are meeting our guide.

Morgan cites a number of specific street addresses in Paris where the likes of Corso, Burroughs, and Ginsberg stayed in Paris, and we may saunter by some of them during our perambulations. Of interest to me is famed bookstore Shakespeare and Company, which in the Beat heyday hosted many Beat writers overnight or for readings.

Jack Kerouac has his own entry for Paris and number of addresses where he either visited or stayed, so there's that to consider. We'll definitely visit the Louvre, where Van Gogh's paintings hit Jack with "'an explosion of light -- of bright gold and daylight'" (p. 31).

This is a vacation, though, and not a Beat history tour, so don't expect a lot of structure. We'll also be in Lyon and Servagette, France, and Venice and Amalfi, Italy. Venice has a few entries in Morgan's book, and Amalfi has one (but no address). We'll see what we see.

I guess what I really need to do is get out Satori in Paris and re-read it before we leave!