Café de Flore

Overview

Café de Flore is a Paris institution interlinked with the city's intellectual past. Frequented by free-thinkers since the 1880s, the likes of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Pablo Picasso leisured over coffee and cake. So great the cafe's influence, it's sometimes referred to as the 'Birthplace of Surrealism'.

Today, Café de Flore remains a bustling destination, with locals and tourists soaking up the mostly unchanged space once brimming with intelligentsia. Serving traditional French food and drinks, such as croque madames and Kir royales, the hot chocolate is an in-house speciality, perfect when musing on life's deepest questions.

Images: Valentin Kremer, Unsplash