How many Hemingway Bars have you visited?

[scottyrocks]

The Hemingway museum a block from his birth home closed for good. Items from the museum are now in the house and the library. Oak Park il

Just as a side note, Oak Park, IL was the eastern home-base of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. You can tour his studio and buildings, designed by him, there.

 

[Bfd70]

A sorta kinda interesting local debate is that Oak Park claims to be the birthplace of Hemmingway. In fact his birth home is situated squarely in Oak Park...now.
In 1899 the lot where the home is was within the boundaries of Cicero IL, of Al Capone fame. Generally Cicero doesn’t argue the point.

 

[HadleyH1]

Oh man, to buy a Hemingway era vintage barstool from the Paris Ritz...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...shings-hemingway-era-bar-stools-idUSKBN1FK2GM

It's pretty to think about.

I know what you mean

For me it would be amazing... to own that

or own his pen when he wrote "A Movable Feast" ...or a shirt he wore .... or a beret from the Spanish Civil War.....

My God.....that would be totally amazing.WOW

 

[HadleyH1]

In his fav bar in Havana

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall...he was so amazing.

 

[HadleyH1]

not a bar.... but his boat

we like him.

 

[HadleyH1]

1959 ----- Ernest Hemingway, left, speaks with actors Alec Guinness, center, and Noël Coward in Sloppy Joe's Bar during the making of Sir Carol Reed's film version of "Our Man in Havana," based on Graham Greene's best seller, in Havana, Cuba.

 

[HadleyH1]

I would give anything to talk with Ernest Hemingway....to discuss things about life ....you know... even on a movie set ^^^

 

[HadleyH1]

a lady says in the caption of this photo

Ernest Hemingway and my grandma having a chat in Havana, Cuba 1952. “





“I drink to make other people more interesting.”

― Ernest Hemingway



who can blame him not me LOL

 

[HadleyH1]

separating fiction from reality


(so many photos so lilttle time)

 

[HadleyH1]

thank you triple-d ....I do like that picture of Hemingway! ^^^

 

[triple-d]

thank you triple-d ....I do like that picture of Hemingway! ^^^

No...thank you for taking the time Hadley.....wonderful pics...lol

 

[HadleyH1]

Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy

 

[Edward]

Been in Paris, never bothered with the Ritz (overpriced for the likes of me). I did, however, speak at a conference in Zagreb, Croatia, a few years ago; when I got there, they told me the hotel they'd booked me into was where Hemmingway stayed when he visited. I guess he must have drunk in the bar I ate in.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Well, I did it. An item off my bucket list! Long story short: the opportunity came up to go to Havana, so I grabbed it. Amazing town, full of contradictions. Very impoverished once you get away from the touristy area.

Hired a taxi one day and went out to Hemingway’s villa, Finca Vigia, in San Francisco de Paula which is a suburb of Havana, perhaps 10 miles from the city center. The house was absolutely worth the visit. Beautiful and amazing. Seeing the shoes all polished and lined up, you half wonder if Hemingway isn’t going to suddenly come home again. The pool is much larger and deeper than I had imagined and surrounded by tropical greenery. Eva Gardner once skinny dipped in that pool. Afterwards, Hemingway told his staff that the water should never be changed. The pool is now dry. But the most important thing to me is that Pilar is now in dry dock on the former tennis court, just beyond the pool. She is under a protective roof and there is a wooden walk way around her. This is the very same boat in which Hem conducted anti-submarine patrols in the early years of the war, the same boat in which he caught record breaking marlin, the same boat in which he accidentally shot himself in the leg and in which he tried to seduce a friend’s wife. So many stories! For some reason I was dumb-struck to see the actual marlin fishing chair, right in front of me. What a geek I am. My only gripe is that I made the mistake of over-hearing some of the tales that the tour guides (or taxi drivers?) were telling. Oye, how they mangled some of the facts! One even mixed up wife number 3 and wife number 4.

Afterwards the driver took me out to Cojimar, the small fishing village made famous by “the old man and the sea.” (about a 20/30 minute drive from the Finca.) Cojimar generally seems not to have changed much. It is just a cluster of dilapidated small houses on a couple of dusty streets by a pretty little cove. Although there is now a bust of Hemingway in the park facing the sea. For years Hemingway docked Pilar here. Visited Hemingway’s favorite waterside bar, La Terraza. The pub is a bit too posh for the surrounding community, IMHO. On the day we were there, it was relatively quiet; i.e.- I easily found a seat at the bar to have a daiquiri. In the back of the room there is a giant-sized painting of Pilar at anchor in front of Cojimar’s little Spanish Fort that sits on the point.

Okay, back in Havana, the following evening I visited the Floridita in the middle of the old town. I brought my dog-eared paperback copy of “Islands in the Stream” along on this trip and was rereading the section of the book called “Cuba” (a stand-alone novella, really). It’s both comic and tragic. About 70% of the story takes place inside the Floridita bar, so I had a mental picture and high expectations. Forget it. The place is a tourist trap. From noon until closing time it is absolutely packed with tourists. I waited for a seat at the bar and had a local Cuban beer (“Kristal”). It was funny to watch the non-stop stream of tourists taking selfies of themselves with the bronze statue of Hemingway that sits on his former favorite bar stool. And, yes, the book I was reading at least confirmed that that really was, in fact, his favorite spot. But, as I said, the Floridita is now a tourist trap. If he were alive today, I doubt that EH would go near the place. That didn’t stop me from buying a t-shirt. By comparison, the post-fire-reconstructed Sloppy Joe's bar (original location) is just a few blocks away and is half empty and very peaceful.

Overall, it was an amazing short trip to Havana and well worth it. What a romantic, sad, haunted, and beautiful place. Strolling the Malecon with a good Cuban cigar is not to be missed.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Bar Hemingway at the Ritz in Paris... And it is not packed with tourists! I'm sure the astronomical prices are a big part of the reason for that. It was a special occasion and fun to be there as we approach the 75th anniversary (on 25 August) of Hemingway's leading a band of resistance fighters to liberate the Bar at the Ritz. Yes, yes, we know that this isn't the actual bar that he stormed, but it's fun to pretend. A lot of fun!

 

[de Stokesay]

I’ve been to Harry’s Bar in Venice, La Floridita in Havana (almost empty when I was there on the 17th of March, 2014 the very day that Cuba opened up to the US), La Bodagita in Havana, and Sloppy Joe’s in Havana. I have also been to Finca Vigia, just out of Havana, and his house in Key West as well. I’m a pretty big Hemingway fan!

 

[belfastboy]

I have visited all of Papas countries/locales, all save for the Florida Keys. Have yet to step into any of 'his' bars as they are usually filled with tourists. I did enjoy the day spent at Finca Vigia, the week in Pamplona was a blast and found his house and gravesite in Ketchum solemn and poignant.

 

[Tiki Tom]

My wife collects Pandora charms for her bracelet. I collect Hemingway locations. (Left a half empty bottle of Rioja at his grave; walked the Spanish Civil War frontlines in Madrid; hit all is haunts in Paris and Havana) It really started by accident. In my callow youth, I was in the Army and found myself stationed in Key West. Figuring that I’d try to educate myself and because Hemingway is a small industry in Key West, I bought a paperback of Carlos Baker’s famous Hemingway Biography. That was it, I was hooked. Have since seen Hemingway go out of fashion and come back into fashion. Doesn’t matter to me. He still is one of the most complex and interesting characters of the golden era. And some of his books (not all) stand up well. I reread The Old Man and the Sea again for the first time in 25 years. Now that I’m over 60 myself, I appreciated it more.

 

[Alex Oviatt]

I have been to most of them, including one not yet mentioned: https://cafeiruna.com
I survived not one but two encierros in Pamplona in my youth and of course the best way to celebrate escaping death is eating and drinking at Papa's favorite haunts from The Sun Also Rises.

 

[MisterCairo]

None, sadly...