Around the Sorbonne

Nearly every little neighborhood and street corner in the center part of Paris holds a hundred memories for me. The Latin Quarter was my neighborhood in the 1970s. I never really lived there, but I worked there as a teacher and student for several years.

Walt lived in the neighboring area over near St-Germain-des-Prés and the Jardin du Luxembourg in the early 1980s, and I worked over there then. For a few years in the late '80s and early '90s, we stayed in a hotel just outside the west gate of the Jardin du Luxembourg on our vacations, and really enjoyed that neighborhood.

The Sorbonne's main entrance is on the Rue des Ecoles.

For years after that, we didn't go to the Latin Quarter quite as much. Walt and I rented apartments in Paris for vacations between 1994 and until we moved to Saint-Aignan in 2003, sometimes twice a year, but we usually stayed on the Ile St-Louis, in the Marais, around Montparnasse, or in the 7th arrondissement between Les Invalides and the Tour Eiffel. I'm not sure why we didn't stay in the Latin Quarter.

This statue of the Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne
sits on the street across from the Sorbonne. Can you see
his "gold" shoe? That's the one that students
rub for good luck before they go into
the Sorbonne to take an exam.

Over the past 7 or 8 years, friends of ours from California have come to Paris several times and stayed in hotels in the Latin Quarter, on the Rue des Carmes and the Rue Sommerard, which are located between the Rue des Ecoles and the Boulevard St-Germain, near Place Maubert and the Sorbonne. We started going up to Paris to see them, and enjoying the neighborhood again after many years of spending time in other parts of Paris.

The Brasserie Balzar is a place right next door to the Sorbonne
where Walt and I have enjoyed some good French dinners.
It has long been a favorite with Sorbonne professors,
they say.

There are parts of the Latin Quarter that seem very touristy, but those sections are easy to avoid. The restaurants in those neighborhoods are not so good, serving mediocre food at high prices, and they are packed with foreigners. Hewever, many other areas of the Quarter, which is the 5th arrondissement of Paris, have held onto the flavor and feel of old Paris.

Did you know that the French croissant actually came to Paris
from Austria? This Viennese bakery has been in this location
in the Latin Quarter for at least 40 years, when I first
started buying pastries in the neighborhood.

The residents of the Latin Quarter aren't wealthy, but neither are they working class. Many are teachers or academics, since the 5th is where several the prestigious Paris lycées (secondary schools) and universities are located. The neighborhood feels kind of "shabby chic." Actually, the 5th is one of the oldest areas of Paris — it was settled by the Romans, and there are Roman ruins at the intersection of the Rue des Ecoles and the Boulevard Saint-Michel.

Over in the 6th, near St-Germain-des-Près,
is the old church of St-Sulpice.

So here are a few of my photo memories of the Latin Quarter and the St-Germain neighborhoods. I'm in North Carolina, watching non-stop coverage of the horrible earthquake damage in Japan and the Pacific tsunamis. I'm catching up with jet lag — the first night I slept from about 9:30 p.m. until 3 a.m. Then I was up and moving around for 19 hours, including a shopping trip and visits from my sister, an aunt, and a cousin.

Walt and I have good memories of inexpensive Italian
dinners at the Pizza Vesuvio near St-Germain over
the years. And now I have a good memory of an
Escalope de veau à la florentine (with spinach)
that I had there for lunch last Wednesday.

Then I slept from 10 p.m. last night until 7 a.m. this morning. I needed that. The sun is shining right now and my mother and I have to go out on a shopping expedition later this morning — I need clothes and shoes. I brought hardly anything with me, in anticipation of filling my suitcase with U.S. goods that are a lot less expensive than the clothes and shoes available in France. At any rate, there are not a lot of shopping opportunities around Saint-Aignan. It's a real American experience to hit the stores.