The Latin Quarter

What do the stops from Saint-Germain-des-Prés to Shakespeare and Company have in common? They are all in the Latin Quarter.

The Latin Quarter, Paris's university district best known for the Sorbonne, means "the area where Latin was spoken," because higher education used to be taught in Latin. As a center of learning and intellectual life, it nurtured philosophy, literature and art. Thanks to its many students and tourists, it has a multicultural feel and is packed with restaurants, cafés and bookshops.

Hemingway spent his early days in Paris, and his newlywed years, here. By day he stayed in the Latin Quarter's cafés, and in the afternoon he reportedly walked all the way to Montmartre. It is also the starting point of the May uprising, which began with student protests, spread to workers' strikes and changed French society.

The Latin Quarter, which has also served as a film setting, still keeps the look of a medieval town, with narrow cobbled lanes, old buildings and small squares. Each street has a completely different mood, and the feel changes with the time of day. If landmarks like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower are mostly about looking, this is where you walk, and feel the history and daily life, on the most Parisian streets of all.