Montparnasse was once the home of Paris's great and wants to be great working class artists and bohemians. It is till reminiscent of that era today, although it has undergone the same urban renewal as seen in Marais.

The district is full of little cafes, cinemas. And working class restaurants and bars, but has the urban renewal of some upbeat shopping and tourism attractions as well. The actual tour (or tower) of Montparnasse almost didn't make it off the designers drawing board as the people of the city thought it looked too much like the skyscrapers of Manhattan in the US and thought it put of place for Paris. But it is not the tower or the view that draws some visitors to the site; it is what lies at the ground level.

The celebrity cemetery of Paris, next only to Pere-Lachaise, is a near forgotten and seedy cemetery housing the remains of the once great legends of Simone de Beauvior, Samuel Beckett and Pierre Larousse--who wrote one of the first dictionaries. You will also be able to take gravestone rubbings of actresses, photographers, and sculptors. Spend the day visiting the deceased of Paris that Pere-Lachaise forgot.