Café de la Rotonde

The Cafe de la Rotonde wears a bright red awning and a row of round tables that spill onto the corner of the Boulevard du Montparnasse. In nineteen fourteen, the proprietor Victor Libion had a simple rule for struggling artists. If they ordered a drink, he let them stay for hours. If they had no money, he took their drawings as collateral and pinned them to the walls. Picasso, Modigliani, and Hemingway all spent their days here while they waited for their luck to change.