Even a person who has never been to Paris must have heard of the Latin Quarter. You envisage a university chair, an absent-minded professor, pointy-head students, and a garret with a table heaped with books. Everything is like that but slightly different. The Latin Quarter is the unofficial name for a neighborhood in the center of Paris, in the 5th and 6th arrondissements. The Latin Quarter has no clear boundaries; it spreads on the slopes of the Hill of St. Genevieve and is enclosed by the Seine.

Students began to settle around the Sorbonne, the primary educational institution in France, back in the 13th century. The first intake for the theological department counted 16 people (exactly the number that the student boarding could accommodate): equally from Italy, France, England, and Germany. Half a century later, four faculties were open at the Sorbonne: law, medicine, theology, and free arts. Latin was the teaching language because students came from different countries of Europe. Now the Latin Quarter symbolizes the unspoken confrontation between the left and right banks of the Seine. The right one belongs to the bourgeoisie, officiary, and clubbish set; on the left live students, creative folk, and bohemia. The division, of course, is conventional. Still, it is the Latin Quarter that hosts so many coffee shops, bars, jazz clubs, bookstores. The streets are full of leisurely drifting people with dreamy faces.

It is best to start your discovery of the Latin Quarter from the Place Saint-Michel, which is a five-minute walk from the Notre Dame Cathedral. For your walk, you need to schedule at least three or four hours because you’ll need to have time to see squares, parks, fountains, cathedrals, and, most importantly, walk around the streets of the Latin Quarter to the top of your bent. Here, the characters from pages of the novel “Hopscotch” by Julio Cortazar (the main character, La Maga, lives on Huchette Street), and the film by Bernardo Bertolucci “The Dreamers” (Isabelle is the student of the Sorbonne, Matthew comes to the university on academic exchange) come to life. The Shakespeare and Company bookstore, Rene Viviani Square, the Church of Saint-Severin, Boulevard Saint-Germain, Luxembourg Gardens, and the Pantheon – landmarks follow one another, enchanting you and giving you strength to walk street after street through the ancient and always young Latin Quarter.