Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Saint-Germain-des-Prés takes its name from a Benedictine abbey founded in 543 AD by King Childebert I, who built it to house relics brought back from Toledo. The abbey church that stands today — the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés — dates largely from the 11th and 12th centuries, making it the oldest standing church in Paris, predating Notre-Dame by over a century. Though most of the abbey complex was demolished during the French Revolution, the church survived and retains its original Romanesque bell tower, one of the few intact examples of pre-Gothic religious architecture in the city. Inside, faded Romanesque frescoes and the tomb of René Descartes — interred here in 1667 — give visitors an immediate sense of the depth of history compressed into the quartier's narrow streets.

The neighborhood's modern mythology was forged between 1945 and the early 1960s, when Saint-Germain-des-Prés became the undisputed intellectual capital of postwar Europe. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir made Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain their de facto office, working at corner tables through long afternoons; Albert Camus, Boris Vian, and Juliette Gréco were regulars at Les Deux Magots just steps away. The Cave du Lorraine and the jazz cellars of the quartier gave birth to France's bebop scene, with Miles Davis and Sydney Bechet both performing to packed underground rooms. Publisher Gallimard, whose catalogue includes Proust, Camus, and Sartre, has been headquartered in the neighborhood since 1911 and remains there today, anchoring a dense cluster of independent bookshops and art galleries.

Walking through Saint-Germain-des-Prés today still rewards close attention. The Boulevard Saint-Germain, cut through the neighborhood by Baron Haussmann in the 1860s, bisects streets that retain their medieval alignments. The Marché Saint-Germain, occupying the site of a fair held since the 13th century, reopened after renovation in 1996 as a covered market and shopping arcade. The Musée Delacroix, tucked into the painter's last apartment and studio at Place de Furstenberg — one of Paris's most intimate squares — displays preparatory sketches and personal effects from the final decade of Eugène Delacroix's life, from 1857 until his death in 1863.

Visitors should arrive on foot from the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Métro station (Line 4) and allow at least half a day to absorb the quartier properly. The morning hours, before midday, offer the clearest views of the church exterior and the least-crowded terrace seating at Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots — both of which remain working cafés worth sitting in for a coffee, despite their tourist prominence. The surrounding streets between Rue de Buci, Rue Jacob, and Rue de Seine concentrate the neighborhood's best independent bookshops, antique dealers, and art galleries, several of which have operated from the same premises since the 1930s.