Paris_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Lonely Planet [65]
Return to beginning of chapter
ÎLE ST-LOUIS
Downstream from Île de la Cité and entirely in the 4e arrondissement, St-Louis was actually two uninhabited islets called Île Notre Dame (Our Lady Isle) and Île aux Vaches (Cows Island) in the early 17th century. That was until a building contractor called Christophe Marie and two financiers worked out a deal with Louis XIII to create one island and build two stone bridges to the mainland. In exchange they could subdivide and sell the newly created real estate. This they did with great success, and by 1664 the entire island was covered with fine, airy, grey-stone houses facing the quays and water.
The only sight as such, French Baroque Église St-Louis en l’Île (Map; 19bis rue St-Louis en l’Île, 4e; 9am-noon & 3-7pm Tue-Sun; Pont Marie) was built between 1664 and 1726.
Return to beginning of chapter
LATIN QUARTER & JARDIN DES PLANTES
Drinking; Eating; Shopping; Sleeping
There is no better strip to see, smell and taste the Quartier Latin (Latin Quarter), 5e, than rue Mouffetard, a thriving market street that is something of a local mecca with its titillating line-up of patisseries, fromageries and fishmongers, interspersed by the odd droguerie-quincaillerie (hardware store) – easily spotted by the jumble of laundry baskets, buckets etc piled on the pavement in front. Knowing what’s happening is easy here: go into Le Verre à Pied, order un café at the bar and the market-stall holders will soon start chatting to you. Or try Cavé La Bourgogne, where old ladies with pet lapdogs gather each day at 10.30am for a coffee and a chinwag.
The centre of Parisian higher education since the Middle Ages, the Latin Quarter is so-called because conversation between students and professors was in Latin until the Revolution. Academia remains a focal point of life – the Sorbonne is here – though its near monopoly on Parisian academic life is not what it was. But bury your nose in one of the quarter’s late-opening bookshops, linger in a café, eat cheap in its abundance of budget restaurants or clink drinks during a dozen different happy hours and there will almost certainly be a student or academic affiliated with the Sorbonne sitting next to you.
Come the warmer months, everyone spills over to place St-Michel, place de la Sorbonne and other pigeon-filled squares. Movie buffs watch classics on rue des Écoles, and activists and sympathisers join under the same banner at the Mutualité to chant slogans and fight the good fight. Fancy a pied à terre around the corner from the Sorbonne? A 40-sq-metre, contemporary loft-style apartment costs around €430,000.
ARÈNES DE LUTÈCE Map
49 rue Monge, 5e; admission free; 9am-5.30 to 9.30pm Apr-Oct, 8am-5.30 to 9.30pm Nov-Mar; Place Monge
The 2nd-century Roman amphitheatre, Lutetia Arena, once sat around 10,000 people for gladiatorial combats and other events. Found by accident in 1869 when rue Monge was under construction, it’s now used by neighbourhood youths for playing football, and by old men for boules and pétanque.
CENTRE DE LA MER Map
01 44 32 10 90; www.oceano.org, in French; Institut Océanographique; 195 rue St-Jacques, 5e; adult/3-12yr €4.60/2; 9am-12.30pm & 1.30-6pm Tue-Sun; Luxembourg
France has a long history of success in the field of oceanography (think Jacques Cousteau and, well, Jules Verne), and the Sea Centre cruises through that science, as well as marine biology, via temporary exhibitions, aquariums, scale models and audiovisuals. Kids will love the aquariums and the audiovisuals.
ÉGLISE ST-ÉTIENNE DU MONT Map
01 43 54 11 79; 1 place Ste-Geneviève, 5e; 8am-noon & 2-7pm Tue-Sat, 9am-noon & 2.30-7pm Sun; Cardinal Lemoine
The Church of Mount St Stephen, built between 1492 and 1655, contains Paris’ only surviving rood screen (1535), separating the chancel from the nave; the others were removed during the late Renaissance because they prevented the faithful assembled in the nave from seeing the priest celebrate Mass. In the nave’s southeastern