What Happens When You Swallow A Pin

Paris by districts

In June last year I started working as a tour guide. It was an incredible experience because each group behaved like a child discovering a new toy. I was in charge of tours in English, French and English, so I had contact with people virtually all over the world (New Zealand, Argentina, Spain, Belgium, Mexico, United States, Bulgaria, South Africa ...). Hearing stories of people who travel 30 hours one week only to come to Paris.

The most impressive thing is that this work not only tourists discovering new places, but I also, despite being the leader, participated in the discovery of things that I never imagined existed, and like them I could not wait to get back to see everything that I was surprised. Fashion in the garden of the Royal Palace (Palais Royal ), music concerts every Sunday from 14h in front of the Comedie Francaise ( Comédie Française), carnivals, fairs in the Place de la Concorde ( Place de la Concorde ), photographic studios with models of Vogue Magazine in the Pont Alexandre III ( Pont Alexandre III ) movie recording movie, car races early twentieth century ... and a host of activities that happen every day in Paris, but you do not see it always goes to the races.

So yesterday morning I decided to take a break to enjoy another of my favorite neighborhoods: the Latin Quarter.

Carrefour Rue Danton et Boulevard Saint-Germain

Rue Danton Carrefour Boulevard Saint-Germain et

One of the most interesting but also the most difficult of view is the Cour de Rohan. This is a set of three private courtyards house a medieval wall, a mule and a step Well eighteenth century, one of the few remaining wells in the city.

Cour de Rohan, Paris 75006

access to the Cour de Rohan

This place is full of stories and still retains its cobbled streets and houses of the eighteenth century and fragments of the medieval walls of Paris during times of King Philip Augustus. In the Middle Ages, the Cour de Rohan depended on the archbishops of Rouen and there is where it gets its name. To qualify you must pass through the Rue du Commerce (attractive shopping arcade with coffee oldest in Paris) which is right next to the Odéon crossing. Unfortunately there is a door with a code that only the neighbors know and we have no choice but to go with the hope that that day is free access, I know that is accessible to the public in the spring and summer. Anyway, once inside it is as if time had frozen. Práctimante everything is preserved intact and even the only "standing" or "step mule" that was used to mount the horse more easily (pictured just below). Were scattered throughout the city and obviously with the construction of streets and avenues, these feet had to be removed.

In 1686, Francesco Procopio of COLTELLI, a Palermo riquillo installed with your coffee in Paris and gives the name Café Procope. The quality of your drinks and sorbets and its proximity to the theater of the Comedie Francaise (Ancienne) cause this place will become a Sunday meeting that gradually transform him in the first literary café in the world for two centuries all What had been appointed and it would be named in the world of letters, arts and politics used to pass by the Cafe Procope. Characters ranging from La Fontaine to Anatole France, through Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Beaumarchais and Verlaine.

Café Procope. The world's oldest coffee

As the list will give an account of the "regulars" (frequent customer) of Procope is the same as that of the great names of French literature. They can not lose, really. I have stayed with the desire to visit it, but this in my next visit as soon have 5 EurAc to try at least the coffee, which according to neighbors, is a very good taste. The menu goes noon at € 20.

Another of the wonders of this area is the only place in town where for € 22 euros you can eat some "delicious" frog legs, which are an inseparable part of traditional French cuisine. The other option is to go to the Champs Elysees and pay 100 euros for a plate. If you dare enough to get off at Odéon metro lines or 4 10 and just two blocks from the Rue du Commerce, will have to find the number 26 Rue des Grands Augustins. The restaurant is called Roger Grenouille ( something like Roger the Frog Restaurant). And told me that they were. For my part I have not even encouraged.

Rue des Grands Augustins

Roger La Grenouille Restaurant, Paris 6ème

Why is called the Latin Quarter?

The reason is simple. Paris has a long tradition that comes from the Middle Ages to receive foreign students for their studies mainly in the Sorbonne (Université de la Sorbonne , founded in 1253) and the vernacular at the time was Latin. Indeed, the characteristic of the Latin Quarter is that it found most of the older powers in Paris. Among the most important buildings, not distant from each other, are the School of Law in front of the Panthéon, the Faculty of Medicine and Philosophy a few blocks from the metro Odéon, and of course, next to the Cluny Museum is the Alma Mater , the landmark of the Sorbonne that lies between the Boulevard Saint-Michel and Rue Saint-Jacques.

Université René Descartes Paris V Sorbonne

Annex to Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle (Entrance on Rue de l'Ecole de Medicine)

Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Cour (Rue de l'Ecole de Medicine)

Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Court (Street of the School of Medicine)

Paris III , Sorbonne Nouvelle - Court (Street of the School of Medicine)

Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Amfiteatro / Amphitheatre (Street of the School of Medicine)

Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Door (Rue de l'Ecole de Medicine)

But also in the Latin Quarter there are countless commercial, gastronomic and film. In every corner you can find a "great" cinema complex and independent theaters showing all kinds of movies. Restaurants good and bad about every 2 meters and shops galore worth watching because the windows are made with great imagination.