OVERVIEW - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette - page 33

street will do nicely here, but do not look for apartments in
October, when the students return and are looking as well.
What draws tourists as well as locals are the international
book stores and music shops, offbeat boutiques, world-
renowned jazz clubs and cabarets, theatres, an inviting mix
of restaurants and cafés and a large selection of cinemas that
show foreign and art films. Tourists congregate around Place
Saint-Michel, where shops are downmarket and restaurants
overpriced. Nonetheless, this all contributes to the exuberant,
youthful atmosphere that pervades the Quartier Latin.
The intellectual and artistic focus of the 5 e becomes more
sophisticated as one moves west toward Place Saint-Germain-
des-Prés. Located here, where the Romans dedicated a temple
to the goddess Isis, is the heart of the 6 e —the 1,500-year-old
site of Paris' first Christian church, now the Eglise Saint-
Germain-des-Prés. This square is one of the most visited in
Paris, and the crowds who come here every day of the year,
whether to visit the ancient church or to sip a coffee across
the street, experience all of Paris, then and now.
For centuries this area was just an extension of the Latin
Quarter but is now more known for its place in the post-World
War II scene. Existentialism and a liberated, intellectual life
unfolded at this area—at the famous cafés, the Deux Magots
and the Café de Flore, at the Brasserie Lipp and at the
bookshop, La Hune—where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-
Paul Sartre held court. Jazz had long been hot nearby on rue
Saint-Benoît. Today the cafés are the province of tourists, of
the chic set coming to see and be seen, and of a few writers
trying to soak up the atmosphere of the past.
This part of the arrondissement has it all. From Place
de l'Odéon, past Mabillon, the well-trodden streets off
the boulevard have antique shops, art galleries, cinemas,
theatres, restaurants, cafés galore, upmarket boutiques and
markets at rue de Buci and near rue Mabillon.Toward the
Seine, in the quartier Beaux-Arts, named for its prestigious
arts school, the narrow, angled streets have low-rise 17th-
and 18th-century buildings with apartments rented by both
Parisians and foreigners—currently the most expensive
residential niche.