Paris_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Lonely Planet [68]
SORBONNE Map
12 rue de la Sorbonne, 5e; Luxembourg or Cluny-La Sorbonne
The crème de la crème of academia flock to this distinguished university, one of the world’s most famous. Founded in 1253 by Robert de Sorbon, confessor to Louis IX, as a college for 16 impoverished theology students, the Sorbonne soon grew into a powerful body with its own government and laws. Today, it embraces most of the 13 autonomous universities – 35,500-odd students in all – created when the University of Paris was reorganised after the student protests of 1968. Until 2015, when an ambitious, 10-year modernisation programme costing €45 million will be complete, parts of the complex will be under renovation.
Place de la Sorbonne links blvd St-Michel and the Chapelle de la Sorbonne, the university’s gold-domed church, built between 1635 and 1642 and currently being restored at a cost of €13.6 million; it should reopen in 2009. The remains of Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) lie in a very camp tomb here, with an effigy of a cardinal’s hat suspended above it.
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ST-GERMAIN, ODÉON & LUXEMBOURG
Drinking; Eating; Shopping; Sleeping
From the packed pavement terraces of literary café greats Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore, where Sartre, de Beauvoir and other postwar Left Bank intellectuals drank, to the pocket-sized studios of lesser-known romantic and Russian cubist artists, this quarter, born out of a 6th-century abbey, oozes panache. Yet weave your way through the shopaholic crowds on blvd St-Germain, past flagship prêt-à-porter stores and vast white spaces showcasing interior design, and there’s little hint of St-Germain des Prés’ legendary bohemia. The arrival of the fashion industry changed all that jazz years ago.
Yet there is a startling cinematic quality to this soulful part of the Left Bank, where Pierre and Jean-Pierre Heckmann restore antique ivory in their 1930s family shop Click here, gourmets talk bread and wine with local legends like Apolliana Poilâne Click here and Juan Sánchez Click here, and well-dressed ladies take their 1960s cast-offs to vintage dealers on rue de Buci. Artists and writers, students and journalists, actors and musicians cross paths in the shadow of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, the Académie Française and the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe.
Despite the passing fashions, village life has survived in this pricey 6e arrondissement (a 200-sq-metre apartment in an elegant 18th-century mansion on the boulevard costs €3.2 million). Stroll past the portfolio of designer boutiques on rue du Cherche Midi, past Patrick Blanc’s flamboyant vegetal wall growing inside No 7, past the constant crowd gathered at the foot of guillotined revolutionary leader Georges Danton on Carrefour de l’Odéon, past the heaps of organic veg at the Rue Raspail market and the stalls groaning under the weight of fresh fruit on rue de Seine and watch it leap out at you. La vie germanopratine (St-Germain life) is belle.
ÉGLISE ST-GERMAIN DES PRÉS Map
01 55 42 81 33; 3 place St-Germain des Prés, 6e; 8am-7pm Mon-Sat, 9am-8pm Sun; St-Germain des Prés
Paris’ oldest church still standing, this Romanesque church of St Germanus of the Fields was built in the 11th century on the site of a 6th-century abbey and was the dominant church in Paris until the arrival of Notre Dame. It has been altered many times since, but the Chapelle de St-Symphorien (to the right as you enter) was part of the original abbey and is believed to be the resting place of St Germanus (AD 496–576), the first bishop of Paris. The Merovingian kings were buried here during the 6th and 7th centuries, but their tombs disappeared during the Revolution. The bell tower over the western entrance has changed little since 990, although the spire dates only from the 19th century. The vaulted ceiling is a starry sky that seems to float forever upward.