Exploring Paris’s Left Bank and its oldest neighbourhood, Latin Quarter
The Left Bank is famous for attracting writers and artists like Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and Gertrude Stein but its history goes back thousands of years. Here is the best way to explore it.
It’s early springtime in Paris and the first, frothy cherry blossoms have escaped their buds, although down by the River Seine the breeze offers a stern reminder that winter has yet to finish. We have just enjoyed a lazy picnic on the riverbank, seagulls wheeling and crying above our heads as we gaze at Notre-Dame Cathedral, newly risen from the ashes, its rebuilt spire soaring triumphantly.
It’s hard to imagine that in 1854, when Napoleon III unleashed his determined civil servant Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann to mastermind a historic renewal of medieval Paris, some 20,000 crumbling tenements were razed to make way for the 40,000 or so buildings of uniform limestone, slate and wrought-iron trimmings that make up the elegant, distinctive city we know today.
A century and a half later, US author Rebecca Solnit wrote, “Roads are a record of those who have gone before us”. And on this day, looking over to the Left Bank, towards the haphazard and bohemian streets of Saint-Germain-des-Pres and the cobblestone alleys of the Quartier Latin, it dawns on me that somehow these neighbourhoods largely escaped the visionary Haussmann’s attentions.
The splendour of Haussmann’s wide, linear boulevards and homogenous facades is unrivalled and universally loved. But hidden within the labyrinthine streets and lanes of the Left Bank, amid the imperfection of asymmetrical shops and buildings and within the unique covered commercial passageways reminiscent of bustling Turkish souks, is another irresistible face of Paris. And it’s one worth learning about.
In my past travels, I’ve assiduously avoided guided tours of well-known places, preferring to find my own way, falling accidentally on little cultural or architectural gems. But more recently, I have come to understand that carefully chosen guides can make you feel as if someone has turned on the lights in a room you thought you knew well. And so it is with Anthony Malandin, an art history graduate of the Sorbonne, who launches his guided walk through the Quartier Latin with a welcoming, if slightly apologetic smile: “Ah, it is not very long to tell you all about this place … thousands of years are here. But we try!”
This outing has been organised by Erwin, the supreme concierge at Hotel Dame des Arts. We meet not far from the hotel, just a 40m stroll from the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame Metro station. Anthony splays his arms in a wide arc to explain that the Quartier Latin is a rather vaguely defined area covering parts of both the 5th and 6th arrondissements, from the streets and the hill of Saint Genevieve to the Pantheon. It’s bounded by Boulevard Saint-Michel on one side and the river on the other. Just south is Ile de la Cite, site of the cathedral.
Not only is the Quartier Latin the city’s oldest neighbourhood but it’s home to the oldest living tree in Paris, a splendid Robinia that landed in Europe in the 17th century with botanist Jean Robin and still spreads its boughs over the Square Rene Viviani. The city’s oldest cafe, Le Procope, opened by Sicilian chef Procopio Cuto in 1686, and once a hub of 18th-century literary and artistic intellectual life, is also here as is the city’s oldest standing building, the remains of a Roman bath, and all just a stone’s throw from Europe’s second oldest university.
This is also the territory in which Puccini’s great opera La Boheme travels, inspired by French writer Henri Murger’s thinly veiled accounts of his own adventures in pre-Haussmann Paris with a group of artistic friends.
Published as a series of sketches in a Left Bank newspaper of the mid-1840s, Murger coined the word “bohemian” to describe this movement, which flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, earthed in the nomadic ways of Bohemia in central Europe. The tight-knit breed of struggling writers and artists sought refuge in the cafes and clubs of Montmartre, distancing themselves from the conformity of the bourgeoisie, thus immortalising the idea of young, rebellious creatives suffering for their art in Left Bank garrets. Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton and Salvador Dali number among the best-known members of this movement, which embraced the tenets of “truth, beauty, freedom and love” and incorporated its own system of beliefs.
Over the next couple of hours, we take to the streets like obedient ducklings behind their mother, starting at elegant Place Saint-Michel. Its imposing fountain statue of the eponymous saint formed an integral part of Haussmann’s plan, creating a grand entree to his new, wider Pont Saint-Michel. Before Haussman, Anthony tells us, Paris was a city of 2.7 million. Today it is home to 2.2 million, and there were only two bridges until the 18th century.
The beauty of a good guide lies in the capacity to share knowledge without making it weigh heavily and, as we amble, I absorb a plethora of gems. For example, the nearby cobbled and pedestrianised rue de la Huchette is the home of Paris’s first jazz club and the legendary Theatre de la Huchette, known for the nonstop playing since 1957 of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist double bill of The Lesson and The Bald Soprano.
Stopping on the corner of lively rue Saint-Severin, just before the 12th-century church of the same name, we see wonderfully jumbled and chaotic wooden houses dating back to the 16th century and almost the anathema of Haussman apartments. Anthony points out that unlike today, when the most expensive apartments are on upper floors, the wealthiest Parisians lived in the lower levels of Haussman buildings: “You see the long iron balconies just above street level? Often they were one enormous apartment, while maids and those working in service had to climb many stairs and lived up the top in the smaller spaces.”
On rue Galande, Anthony asks us to look above the door of No. 42, where he shows us the city’s oldest sign. It’s a 14th-century bas-relief of Saint Julien the Hospitalier, first recorded in 1380. It sits above what is now an artsy cinema showing Rocky Horror. Without an expert guide, who would have known?
Many of the little streets of the ’hood formed part of the original Gallo-Roman roads that connected Lutetia (the ancient city of Paris) to Italy. During the Middle Ages, these streets were home to the city’s first printing presses and known for bookshops. In the 19th century, Rue de la Harpe was a favoured meeting place for writers, artists and intellectuals, including Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. Today, it is lined with shops, restaurants and cafes, simply perfect for people-watching.
Around another corner we visit the church of Saint-Severin, dating to 1230, and rebuilt after a fire in the 15th century and again in the 17th. The distinctive flame-shaped stone framing of its facade window inspired and gave its name to what would become known as the Flamboyant Gothic style. Sainte-Chapelle, one of the greatest examples of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture, is next on our route and its 13th-century stained-glass leaves me exhilarated as the sun sinks lower and colours shift.
In the Sorbonne district, we find rue de la Parcheminerie, named in the 1300s after the scribes, scriveners and parchment makers of the Middle Ages. Paris’s origins as a settlement lie much further back, in the 3rd century BC, when Gallic tribes known as Parisii settled on the bank of the river. The conquering Roman army arrived in 52BC but chose not to wipe out the culture of the inhabitants, leaving behind a mix of Roman and Gallic gods and temples which, after the collapse of the empire, were Christianised. Anthony walks us to the remnants of the once opulent, marble-clad Gallo-Roman bath and spa dating back to the 2nd century AD; it still boasts the huge, vaulted room known as the frigidarium but now forms part of Musee de Cluny, where a splendid Middle Ages collection includes the legendary Lady and the Unicorn tapestry.
Just off rue St Jacques, crossing the 5th arrondissement north to south on what was the original Via Superior dating back to the 1st century BC, Anthony explains how some Parisian buildings can be dated just by looking up for names painted on facades. Architects were not allowed to advertise their names on public buildings but could do so on private structures. Sure enough, some buildings do bear the names of the architect and the sculptor of its facades plus the year of construction.
After a leisurely climb uphill, we arrive at the foot of the neoclassical Pantheon, commissioned by the hypochondriac King Louis XV who, convinced he was always on the threshold of death, conceived the sanctuary as an offering to Saint Genevieve to safeguard his health. Completed just before the Revolution, it sparked a big debate on what to do with it in the aftermath. Today, it is the burial place of 80 of France’s greatest political scientific and literary figures, including Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Rousseau, along with a select group of dead Revolutionaries. There is space for 200, says Anthony, but only six are women.
Next we head down to the flower-laden Luxembourg Gardens, where hundreds of chairs are left out to be moved around to capture sunshine. Children play with model sailboats on the octagonal lake, and Parisians enjoy spirited games of tennis. Here is Luxembourg Palace, built by Marie de Medici, widow of King Henry IV, and now home of the French Senate, opened to the public just once a year.
We press on towards Odeon, the Metro stop named after the legendary 1782 theatre where The Marriage of Figaro premiered, and into the hidden gem of Cour du Commerce Saint-Andre, a cobbled passageway of boutiques and cafes in the 6th arrondissement. An inordinate number of France’s most important historic moments unfolded in this unique place, from the first test of the guillotine (on a sheep) to meetings of the great philosophers of the Enlightenment – Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Montesquieu – at Cafe Procope. Sit at the tables where these men held long, coffee-fuelled imaginings of a world sans monarchy, a society shaped by free speech and built on equality.
Later in the 18th century, those who translated these ideas into Revolution also gathered here and it’s said that Benjamin Franklin worked on a draft of the American Constitution, while revolution leaders Georges Danton, Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilian Robespierre made it their headquarters. Danton lived at No. 1, while the builder of the guillotine, Tobias Schmidt, lived at No. 9. Even the paving we stand on here is precious, because much of the Latin Quarter lost its cobblestones during the historic student demonstrations of May 1968 when they were ripped up to make barricades.
As Anthony ends our tour and walks us back to the hotel, I am reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s observation that setting out on foot in Paris “provides lessons in history, beauty and in the point of life”.
How right he was.
Historic and creative districts around the world
Many great cities are home to vibrant, historic districts associated with intellectual, cultural and even rebellious pursuits. Despite living in London for 16 years, I don’t know what I’d choose as its most creative district. Shoreditch, once a place where flats were cheap to buy or rent, now attracts an eclectic crowd and is a hub of street art (including by Banksy), home to the Whitechapel and Brick Lane galleries and a plethora of cafes, pubs and cool eateries. Camden, overrun by tourists, is still integral in the capital’s rock music history and fabulous for people-watching, from goths and old punks to bearded hipsters.
Notting Hill, once a haven of writers and artists, filmmakers and reggae musicians, is now fabulously expensive. Clerkenwell, an industrial wasteland, is full of arty types clustered around the Barbican and Sadler’s Wells. Camberwell, originally a high-crime zone, has great eateries and bars, and one of the city’s best-known art schools, home also to sculptor Anish Kapoor’s studio and springboard for Antony Gormley.
In NYC, Greenwich Village, on the west side of Lower Manhattan, was known throughout the 20th century as a haven for artists and is acknowledged as the cradle of the Beat Generation, the counterculture of the 60s and the modern LGBTQ movement. It embraces Washington Square Park and two of New York’s most famous private universities, NYU and The New School. Gentrification has turned it into one of the US’s most expensive districts, but there is so much to see.
Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg must surely be one of the coolest places on Earth. When I first visited about 20 years ago, it felt as if I’d landed in a different universe, buzzing with artists’ studios fashioned from industrial buildings, creative start-ups, markets with international food stalls and a gazillion places to down beer at a communal street table in the sunshine. The most interesting museums include Berlinische Galerie and Gropius Bau. And, oh, the nightlife.
In the know
Two-hour tours of the Left Bank for six people are available for €300 ($528) through the concierge of the Hotel Dames des Arts. Guide Anthony Malandin also runs tours of the district with Context Travel.
Paola Totaro was a guest of Hotel Dames des Arts.
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