Springtime in Paris: The Quartier Latin

Having decided not to wait on the long line to enter Notre Dame, we proceeded across the Cardinal Lustiger bridge to the fifth arrondissement of the Left Bank. This was the shortest of all the Seine bridges within Paris but provided a mighty view of the thirteenth century cathedral's High Gothic façade. From Quai de Montebello we could see the reconstruction of the spire which had been destroyed in the 2019 fire. That spire was designed by master architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the nineteenth century to replace the original Gothic spire. At first I thought the two small figures next to the spire were workers but after they remained motionless for some minutes I realized they had to be statues. Some later research informed me that these were the restored copper statues of the apostles with their patinas removed. In twenty or thirty years they will once again have their familiar green look.

Right next to the bridge was the renowned bookstore Shakespeare and Company, which I was somewhat surprised to see a line in front of. I knew it was a well-known institution but I hadn't expected a full-blown tourist attraction. In retrospect I should have known better, as the bookstore has acquired a great deal of cultural mystique over its seventy-five years in existence. It was a regular hangout of Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and attracted numerous other literary figures to its eclectic collection. The establishment assumed the name of an earlier Parisian bookstore that had gone defunct, also highly regarded for its collection and with an even more estimable collection of habitués. To the bookstore's credit they limited the number of people inside and forbade photography, which meant one could look around without constantly getting picked up in someone's selfie. The books I saw were pretty much the same glossy new editions one might find in any other bookstore at the typical high prices so we moved along fairly quickly.

On the opposite side of the block which held the bookstore there was a brooding Flamboyant Gothic church called Saint-Séverin, the original parish church of the University of Paris in the thirteenth century. We continued down Rue de la Parcheminerie behind the church where there was a dignified mansion with a mansard roof, probably once the accommodation of the parish priest. Soon we found ourselves in a busy area with narrow, commercial streets packed with stores and restaurants.

The Quartier Latin was one of my biggest disappointments on our first visit to Paris in 2008. I suppose I had the idea I would find it just as it had been in the bohemian period of the 1920's and 1930's, atmospheric and inspiring, with the legacies of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway emanating from every doorway. I discovered that the twenty-first century reality was a heavily commercialized neighborhood, crawling with English-speaking tourists packing innumerable generic cafes and creperies. This time around things seemed different, probably in large part because of my more measured expectations. I'm sure the time of year had a great deal to do with it as well, with a large proportion of the pedestrians being students from the surrounding universities rather than tourists on summer break. While there was certainly no shortage of people about, we never got that sense that we were in an artificial construct like a pavilion in a cultural theme park.

My AI assistant had guided me to Cour du Commerce Saint-André, a medieval cobblestone alley that has been narrowed to a ribbon by the decks of the cafes alongside it. We were now deep in the sixth arrondissement and at the western edge of the Quartier Latin. The decoration of the cafes was particularly romantic and theatrical with dense ivy and faux bouquets of autumn leaves overhead. Strings of filament bulbs created a golden, intimate glow while the names of the cafes were colorfully displayed on wrought iron signposts. We emerged into a tiny plaza called Carrefour de l'Odéon formed by the intersection of multiple streets at oblique angles.

Mei Ling and Cleo wanted to go into a clothing store on Rue Saint-Sulpice and Spenser tagged along with them. I kept going with Ian and soon came to the church that gave the street its name. From the back the Saint-Sulpice church looked similar to the other Parisian Gothic churches we had already seen but in front there was a spacious plaza which provided plenty of space to admire the stunning façade. Italian architect Giovanni Servandoni was reportedly inspired by Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. A close inspection of the two belltowers reveals they are mismatched - after Servandoni's death one of his pupils rebuilt the tower on the left in a neoclassical style. Due to the disruption brought on by the French Revolution, the tower on the right remained untouched in its original Baroque form.

Within the plaza there was a monumental fountain with a centerpiece containing four alcoves, each containing the seated figure of a revered seventeenth century bishop. The fountain was constructed in the mid eighteenth century, almost a century after the completion of the church façade. Ian and I rested for a while on a bench in the plaza and I noted with amusement that aside from the usual pigeons clustered around the fountain there was a pair of mallard ducks that would intermittently make an appearance atop the second tier of the fountain.

The rest of my family finally tired of shopping and joined us in the plaza. I noted that dusk was starting to set in and I wanted to reach the final destination on my itinerary while there was still enough daylight to appreciate it. We walked south one block to the gates of the Jardin du Luxembourg, another famous Parisian attraction that we had toured in 2008 and had no need to revisit. We continued east along the northern edge of the park, admiring the particularly elegant and solid rows of apartment buildings in this area.

I hadn't known that Paris had its own Panthéon the first time we visited Paris. The monument was originally constructed to be a church dedicated to Sainte Geneviève, the patron saint of the city. Soon after its completion the French Revolution began and it was decided to repurpose the building as a mausoleum for French citizens of particular eminence. As of the present date eighty-one sets of remains have been interred at the Panthéon including those of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Alexandre Dumas. We re-entered the fifth arrondissement and arrived at the Panthéon along Rue Soufflot, the street named for the building's architect. The monument had a commanding presence at the end of the street, the portico and dome framed by the two rows of classic Haussmann buildings. The portico is quite similar to that of the Panthéon in Rome, but the Parisian dome is vastly different as it is elevated far above the pediment by a tall drum and a lantern base. It was the most impressive building we had seen in the city that wasn't a church, save for the Eiffel Tower. I'm surprised it isn't more recognized as one of the top sights in Paris. Another notable neoclassical building on the same plaza was the town hall of the fifth arrondissement, with the recesses between the columns illuminated in the colors of the French flag.

As we walked around the north side of the Panthéon we caught sight of yet another majestic church, this one in a completely different style from the others we had seen that day. While Notre Dame and Saint-Sulpice had presented with imposing symmetry and dual belltowers, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont looked more like a medieval Bavarian castle with one slender belltower soaring high above its heavily ornamented façade. An even skinnier turret adjacent to the belltower contained the spiral staircase that provided access to the belfry and the clock mechanism. Although Notre Dame and Saint-Sulpice had appeared to me to be similar, they were actually the furthest apart in terms of both their era and their architectural design. Saint-Étienne-du-Mont was built during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, resulting in a hybrid of late Gothic and Renaissance styles.

Another prodigious day of walking was coming to a close and everyone had had quite enough of zipping from arrondissement to arrondissement. It was clear that the best course of action was to find a restaurant nearby and then take the Metro back home to Quinze Vingts. A quick glance at Google Maps brought the welcome news that the residential neighborhood just north of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont was packed with restaurants, many with stellar ratings. It was a very vibrant and cosmopolitan area, with English pubs and Asian restaurants alongside the traditional French bistros. Having partaken of French haute cuisine at Les Enfants du Marché for lunch, I couldn't deny my family's request for a change of pace and we squeezed into a crowded Sichuan place for satisfying bowls of spicy noodles.

By this point I had figured out that Google Maps was ranking my Metro routes according to their duration, when we often wanted to minimize walking at the end of the day even if it meant more train changes and a longer trip. This time I used the Metro map and found a route from the station closest to the restaurant to the station closest to our apartment. We had to change trains three times but we were still glad to be mostly done with walking for the day. We had to conserve some energy for our final full day in Paris.