KIIS Paris-Munich

26/08/2026

Paris has officially committed to reopening the Sorbonne Chapel to the public after 25 years behind locked doors.

The chapel sits right at the heart of the Sorbonne, the oldest university in France, and its gray dome is one of the most recognizable rooftops in the Latin Quarter. Inside is the marble tomb of Cardinal Richelieu, carved by François Girardon, along with dome paintings by Philippe de Champaigne that are considered some of the only surviving examples of his large-scale decorative work. A storm in 1999 badly damaged the structure, and the interior has been closed to visitors ever since, aside from a couple of days a year.

Restoration work is already underway. The entrance doors were repaired last year, giving direct access from Place de la Sorbonne for the first time in decades, and crews are now cleaning and restoring the four painted medallions at the base of the dome.

City Hall, the Sorbonne, and the World Monuments Fund have formed an official partnership and meet every six months to track progress, though a full reopening will still take years, since it also requires new safety and accessibility upgrades.

14/08/2026

September 15 is the deadline to apply for the Paris-Munich Winter Program this year! Who's going to join us on our culinary adventure in Germany and France? Find out more and apply here:

Date: December 27, 2026 - January 7, 2027 Cost: $3,475 + airfare Subjects: Cuisine & Culture, Film, Honors

31/07/2026

Le Chat Noir opened on November 18, 1881, in two small rented rooms at 84 Boulevard de Rochechouart, at the foot of Montmartre. Its founder, Rodolphe Salis, briefly called it Cabaret Artistique before renaming it after the black cat, an image already tied to Paris's stray, roaming nightlife.

The venue quickly outgrew itself. Within three and a half years, Salis moved the cabaret to larger premises nearby, on Rue Victor-Massé, styled by an architect to look like a fashionable country inn. He installed a piano, still a novelty for venues at the time, and built a format that became the blueprint for the modern cabaret: patrons seated at tables with drinks, watching a variety show led by an emcee who riffed with the crowd. Writers and artists including Verlaine, Debussy, Satie, and Toulouse-Lautrec passed through its doors.

In 1896, Salis commissioned artist Théophile Steinlen to design a poster advertising a touring version of the cabaret's act. The result, a black cat with arched back and glowing yellow eyes, became one of the most reproduced images of the era.

Salis died in March 1897, at just 45, and Le Chat Noir closed soon after, only 16 years after it opened. The building and the cabaret itself are long gone, but Steinlen's poster still outsells almost every other piece of Belle Époque art in print today.

29/07/2026

Today marks 136 years since Vincent van Gogh died in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of Paris.

His grave is not what most people expect. No marble angel, no grand monument. Just a simple headstone against the cemetery wall, covered in ivy that reportedly came from the garden of Dr. Paul Gachet, the physician who cared for him in his final weeks.

Right beside him is his brother Theo, an art dealer who spent years funding Vincent's paintings and supplies when almost nobody else believed in his work. Theo died just six months after Vincent, and many say grief played a part. He was originally buried in the Netherlands. In 1914, his widow Johanna had his remains moved across the continent so the two brothers could finally rest side by side.

They still do today, sharing that same blanket of ivy.

A lot of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, the ones many of us first saw in a textbook or on a museum wall growing up in the States, were painted during his final 70 days here in Auvers. That's part of why the village has become a quiet stop for American travelers extending a Paris trip, even though the grave itself is easy to miss if you don't know where to look.

25/07/2026

Before Les Deux Magots was a café, it was a fabric shop.

In 1812, a novelty and lingerie store opened at 23 rue de Buci, taking its name from a popular 18th century play called Les Deux Magots de la Chine. The shop displayed two carved Chinese mandarin figurines, known as magots, that were meant to evoke wisdom and exoticism from the Far East.

In 1873, the business moved to its current spot on Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and in 1884 it became a café and liquor shop. The new owners kept the name and the two figurines, which were installed on the pillars of the main room, where they still sit today.

The café went on to host some of the most influential names in French literature and art. Verlaine, Rimbaud, and later Hemingway, Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir all became regulars, and in 1933 a group of Surrealists founded the Prix des Deux Magots, a literary prize still awarded from the same room.

More than 140 years after the figurines were first installed, the two magots are still watching over the same café, on the same square in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

24/07/2026

Just across from Notre Dame, there’s a bookstore that’s been part of Paris life for decades. It’s not just about books, it’s tied to writers, history, and a very specific kind of atmosphere you don’t find everywhere. I’ve shared what it’s really like and why it’s worth going. See Comment 🥰

06/07/2026

21/06/2026

Most people walking past the man stuck in the wall in Montmartre don't know he has a twin — 20 meters underground in the Catacombs.

Both are versions of the Passe-Muraille (the Man Who Walks Through Walls) — a character from a short story written in 1943 by Marcel Aymé, a writer who lived most of his life on rue Norvins in Montmartre. The story follows a modest government clerk named Dutilleul who discovers he can walk through walls. He uses the power to take revenge on his superiors, commit burglaries, escape prison, and pursue a love affair — until one night, mid-wall, his power vanishes. He is left frozen inside the stone, trapped forever.

In 1989, Jean Marais — actor, sculptor, and close friend of Aymé — built the Montmartre version in bronze, giving the figure Aymé's own face as a tribute. The statue stands 2.30 meters tall, chest and head emerging from the wall, one hand and one leg still half-buried in stone. It stands on the small square that was renamed Place Marcel Aymé in 1986 — the same street where Aymé lived and died.

The hands are polished gold. Visitors rub them for luck. Nobody planned it. It just started happening.

The Catacombs version is a different sculpture, same story, same frozen moment — a figure caught mid-passage through solid stone, in a tunnel beneath the city.

One in the light. One in the dark.