PARIS - France 2014 - page 114

• From the Deportation Memorial, cross the bridge to the Left Bank. All those padlocks
adorning the railing are akin to lighting candles in a church. Locals and tourists alike
honorlovedonesbywritingabriefmessageonthelockandattachingittotherailing.You
can buy a lock (called cadenas , €5) at a nearby bookseller's stall along the river.
Turnrightaftercrossingthebridgeandwalkalongtheriver,towardthefrontendof
Notre-Dame. Stairs detour down to the riverbank if you need a place to picnic. This side
view of the church from across the river is one of Europe's great sights and is best from
river level. At times, you may find barges housing restaurants with great cathedral views
docked here.
After passing the Pont au Double (the bridge leading to the facade of Notre-Dame),
watch on your left for Shakespeare and Company, an atmospheric reincarnation of the
original 1920s bookshop and a good spot to page through books (37 Rue de la Bûcherie;
see here ). Before returning to the island, walk a block behind Shakespeare and Company,
and take a spin through the...
▲ Latin Quarter
This area's touristy fame relates to its intriguing, artsy, bohemian character. This was per-
hapsEurope'sleadinguniversitydistrictintheMiddleAges,whenLatinwasthelanguage
of higher education. The neighborhood's main boulevards (St. Michel and St. Germain)
are lined with cafés—once the haunts of great poets and philosophers, now the hangouts
of tired tourists. Though still youthful and artsy, much of this area has become a tourist
ghetto filled with cheap North African eateries. Exploring a few blocks up- or downriver
from here gives you a better chance of feeling the pulse of what survives of Paris' classic
Left Bank. For colorful wandering and café-sitting, afternoons and evenings are best.
Walking along Rue St. Séverin, you can still see the shadow of the medieval sewer
system. The street slopes into a central channel of bricks. In the days before plumbing and
toilets, when people still went to the river or neighborhood wells for their water, flushing
meantthrowingitoutthewindow.Atcertaintimesofday,maidsonthefourthfloorwould
holler, “Garde de l'eau!” (“Watch out for the water!”) and heave it into the streets, where
it would eventually wash down into the Seine.
Consideravisittothe Cluny Museum foritsmedievalartandunicorntapestries(see
here ) . The Sorbonne —the University of Paris' humanities department—is also nearby;
visitors can ogle at the famous dome, but they are not allowed to enter the building (two
blocks south of the river on Boulevard St. Michel).
Be sure to see Place St. Michel. This square (facing the Pont St. Michel) is the tra-
ditional core of the Left Bank's artsy, liberal, hippie, bohemian district of poets, philo-
sophers, and winos. In less commercial times, Place St. Michel was a gathering point for