Place Camille Jullian is a small pedestrian square in the Saint-Pierre district of old Bordeaux, lined with café terraces. Its main building is a medieval church, Saint-Siméon, which has been the Utopia art-house cinema since 1999, after centuries as a warehouse, a school, a cannery and a garage. Under the paving lie a medieval cemetery and a neighbourhood of Roman Burdigala.
Place Camille Jullian at a glance
- Where: in the Saint-Pierre district, a few minutes' walk from Rue Sainte-Catherine and Place du Parlement.
- Named after: Camille Jullian (1859–1933), the historian of Roman Gaul who taught in Bordeaux for more than twenty years.
- What it is today: a pedestrian square with cafés, restaurants and the five-screen Utopia cinema in the former church of Saint-Siméon.
- Time needed: 10 minutes to look around; longer if you stop for a drink or a film.
From parish cemetery to café terraces
Saint-Siméon is a Gothic church of medieval origin, and the ground in front of it was once its cemetery: burials continued here into the late 15th century. At the French Revolution the church was closed and became a warehouse. In the 19th century naval officers used it as a school to train poor boys as sailors; later it was a food cannery, and in the 20th century a garage and car park. By the 1990s the stone was crumbling. The independent cinema group Utopia restored the building and opened its cinema here in 1999. During the works, bones turned up under the floor, a reminder that the dead were buried there too.
The square is named after Camille Jullian, born in Marseille in 1859, who became a professor in Bordeaux in 1883. He published the Roman inscriptions of Bordeaux and a history of the city in 1895, then moved to the Collège de France in 1905, where he wrote his eight-volume Histoire de la Gaule, and was elected to the Académie française in 1924. The name fits: excavations on the square in 1989–1990 uncovered a quarter of Roman Bordeaux occupied from the 1st to the 8th century, now a reference site for the study of amphorae.
What to look for
- The church front of the Utopia: a Gothic facade with a stained-glass window, now hung with film posters.
- Inside the cinema foyer: the nave of the old church, with roof beams and murals painted by students of the Bordeaux École des Beaux-Arts. Some religious decoration was kept in the screening rooms.
- The 18th-century limestone facades around the square, with wrought-iron balconies, typical of the Saint-Pierre district.
- Mascarons: the carved stone faces above doors and windows that Bordeaux is known for. You will find plenty in the streets around the square.
A ship in the nave
The strangest chapter of Saint-Siméon's history is its time as a naval school in the 19th century. Accounts of the building's history describe a full frigate built inside the church, with its mainmast reaching the top of the nave, so that the boys could learn to climb the rigging and handle the sails without going to sea. The pupils slept in hammocks, as on a real ship.
Tips for your visit
- Come in the late afternoon or evening, when the terraces fill up; in the morning the square is quiet and good for photos of the church front.
- Even without a film, you can look into the foyer and its café to see the inside of the church.
- Combine the square with a slow walk through Saint-Pierre: Place du Parlement, the Porte Cailhau and the river quays are all within a few minutes.
Nearby
- Place du Parlement: an elegant 18th-century square with a fountain and restaurant terraces, a few minutes' walk north.
- Porte Cailhau: a late 15th-century town gate with pointed turrets, looking over the Garonne.
- Place de la Bourse and the Miroir d'eau: the 18th-century royal square on the river and the huge reflecting pool in front of it, a short walk away.
- Cathédrale Saint-André: Bordeaux's Gothic cathedral, with its separate bell tower, the Tour Pey-Berland, about 10 minutes' walk away.
See Bordeaux with World City Trail
Our Bordeaux scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around 3 hours, with about 49 minutes of walking, and includes the Saint-Pierre district, where this square lies, and the Cathédrale Saint-André.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Bordeaux.
Play the Bordeaux scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Bordeaux →
Play the outdoor escape game in Bordeaux →
Facts checked in October 2026.