Shakespeare and Company: Bookshop and Café

Shakespeare and Company, known for its yellow wooden sign, is also famous for its tote bags. The café is the one with the white sign to the left of the bookshop.

■ The bookshop's exterior The green wall and yellow wooden sign on the ground floor look like an old English antiquarian bookshop. At the entrance is the shop's philosophy: "Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise." Note, though, that the shop where the penniless Hemingway, then a Paris correspondent, borrowed books and mingled with writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald was the original Shakespeare and Company, run by Sylvia Beach on Rue de l'Odéon. Today's shop was opened by George Whitman in 1951 and later took on the name.

■ Inside Inside, it is tiny and crowded, like a maze made of books. Upstairs, chairs are scattered about for reading and taking photos, though the upper floor is hardly quiet. The shop has as much history as it has famous visitors, and traces of them are displayed all over. There's also a piano anyone can play and a resident cat.

■ A special night in the bookshop Did you know you can stay a night in this historic place of literary giants? It's called the Tumbleweed program, and if you meet three conditions, it's even free: read at least one book a day, help out in the shop, and leave a one-page autobiography. Those one-page memoirs are collected and published as a book. See "Learn more" at the bottom of the in-app script for details.

■ The café Right next door is a café that is perfect for buying a book in the shop and reading it over coffee. These days, though, more people come to take in a leisurely view of Notre-Dame than to read. You may hope for a relaxed Parisian moment but still end up elbowing through crowds. The coffee and menu items are pretty good, though the prices are not exactly friendly. The view of Notre-Dame makes up for it.

■ Next stop Now on to the last stop on the tour, Notre-Dame. With the bookshop behind you, head out to the left, and when you reach the road turn right and keep going straight. Just cross the bridge onto the Île de la Cité. The huge cathedral is hard to miss. Obey the signals and watch for bikes and cars when crossing. It takes about three minutes.