I have always wanted to see Paris, but this trip had a slightly different goal for me.  I wanted to "feel" Paris.  I wanted to basque in its charm and absorb it's literary history.  These were the same streets Hemingway and Fitzgerald walked on.  I wanted to see Paris the way they did.  Cue the Latin Quarter.

This was, by far, my favorite district of Paris.  Let's see...there was the English bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, although relocated from a fire, it was the bookstore often visited by Hemingway, and the owner, Sylvia Beach was responsible for printing James Joyce's Ulysses.  It was dreamy and dusty and amazing.

Then, there was the Jardin du Luxembourg, the very park where Hemingway met Gertrude Stein.  It was like a tropical oasis in the middle of the city.  No joke, palm trees.  The flowers, the ambiance, truly breathtaking.

After the park, my mother and I had lunch at the Luxembourg Cafe.  Sitting at a little bistro table outside enjoying lunch on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Doesn't get more Paris than that.

After lunch, I took my mom on a short excursion past the Sorbonne and the Pantheon and then to a small church nearby whose stairs became a little famous in Midnight in Paris.  Yes, we found the very stairs Owen Wilson sat on when his 1920's chariot swept him away.  Sadly, it wasn't at midnight, but you better believe I'll be there at midnight next time around.

We did a lot of walking around Paris, and while all of the city was incredible, this was the district that felt the most Parisian to me.  It felt frozen in time.  It was like a mecca of literary lovers.  I left a tiny piece of my heart there.  I can't wait to return.