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The eastern part of the Latin Quarter.
Population was 58,849 in 1990 (11th most populated district) and land area
is 2.54 km2 (14th largest district).
`//`-----___ 4th
6th //-----___ ---___
B // ---___ ---___
d // Bd.St-Germain ---___ --_
====.=====================' --_ -
S // \ \ the
a // Cluny `\`\ Seine
i // Sorbonne `\`\
n // r `\`\
t // . \ \
- // Panthéon M Jardin`\`\
M // o des Plantes\ \ 12th
i // u `\`\
c // f /\ \
h // f / `\`\
e // e / Aust\ \
l // t / `\`\
// a __/ \ \
___ // r __--
--//____ d __--
// ----____ __--
// ----_____--
14th
13th
Everything in italics in the map is outside the district.
Montagne Sainte-Geneviève
Basically, the 5th district is a hill bordered by a river. Wherever you
stand in the district, the slope of the ground can help you to find your
direction.
The Parisian ego calls this hill the Montagne (mountain)
Sainte-Geneviève. On its top, it hosts the Panthéon, a church built in
the 18th century and turned into a memorial to the Great Men. Many famous
Frenchmen are buried there, including Voltaire, Rousseau and Victor Hugo, but only two women: Marie Curie and Sophie Berthelot, who died of sorrow
one hour after her husband, a chemist, died. Even today, a new person is
buried in the Panthéon from time to time, with an impressive ceremony.
Saint-Michel and the banks of the
Seine
The district is bordered on its east side by boulevard Saint-Michel,
which joins the Seine at Place Saint-Michel. This is the heart of the
Latin quarter, which also contains most of the 6th district. Near the boulevard
you'll find some of the most famous schools and universities in Paris,
such as the Sorbonne ou Lycée Louis-Le-Grand, i.e the places where
people spoke Latin in the old days. The castle of Cluny hosts a very
interesting museum of the Middle Ages with the famous Lady and the
Unicorn tapestries.
Place Saint-Michel is usually crowded with tourists and students who
choose the fountain as a convenient meeting point. Visit the four or five
Gibert bookshops surrounding the square if you like books.
Even the terrorists love Place Saint-Michel. A Middle Eastern bomb
exploded inside a Gibert library in 1986. Two years later, a Christian
bomb damaged a movie theater that showed Martin Scorsese's The Last
Temptation of Christ. And the last one was an Algerian islamist bomb in
1995, in the underground station.
If you want a cheap lunch in a very lively but not really Parisian
atmosphere, go to rue de la Huchette. In the same street, a theatre has
been showing Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano with no interruption
since 1957.
At the end of rue de la Huchette, walking along the Seine facing
Notre-Dame, you'll find one of the weirdest bookshops in Paris which has
the advantage, for most of you, of being an English bookshop:
Shakespeare and Company. It's open late at night and it seems to be a
good place to meet other foreigners. The library includes beds, kitchens
and a well.
Then you'll have a walk on Quai de la Tournelle, where Woody Allen and
Goldie Hawn dance a supernatural waltz in Everybody Says I Love
You. And if you're rich, you may have dinner at La Tour d'Argent on the
top of a building with a wonderful view on Notre-Dame (well, I suppose so,
since I've never been there).
Jardin des Plantes and rue
Mouffetard
Finally you'll get to the Jardin des Plantes, one of the most
interesting gardens in Paris. It hosts a zoo and a sensational Musée
d'Histoire Naturelle devoted to the evolution of the species. I'll always
remember that cheap hotel facing the museum where I woke up one day and saw
dinosaurs out of the window...
Then come back to the center of the district and have a tea at the Paris
Mosque in a pleasant environment, or read a book in the Arenes de Lutece, a
Roman amphitheatre rebuilt in the 19th century which is also one of the
calmest spots in Paris.
Above the Arenes de Lutece, you'll cross the rue Monge and get to rue
Mouffetard. From the small restaurants of Place de la Contrescarpe, the
street slowly gets down to one of the most lively Parisian markets of Paris
in front of Eglise Saint-Médard, near the limit of the 5th and the 13th district. Many movies feature this street as a typical
Parisian quarter. Remember The Snows of Kilimanjaro, when Ava Gardner
and Gregory Peck spend some wonderful days near Place de la
Contrescarpe.
Until the 19th century, the rue Mouffetard used to continue to Place
d'Italie, but Haussmann decided to replace that part of the street with a
large avenue. But now we have left the 5th district, and we are in the
13th district.