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The Left Bank's medieval legacy – Saint-Germain-des-Prés ("in-the-Fields")...

that is, outside the city wall

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Saint-Germain in the 15th century

The Louvre is in the background.
The same site.

The church is Saint-Germain's only medieval vestige. It too was outside the 12th-century wall.

 


  • The streets resemble those of the Latin Quarter, but the architecture is of a later time

 

 

Institut de France, begun in the 1630's
Saint-Sulpice, begun in the 1780's

 

 

  • A 17th-century palace, built on convent land, is now the Senate

 

 

 

The palm trees give the impression of a great Riviera hotel. The palace, however, is far more impressive.

 

 

  • Wares are quietly splendid

 

 

Superb volumes from the 19th century
A pâtisserie's Easter window

 

 

  • Ultimate indication of an elite of wealth and education – the cluster of galleries of modern 

    and contemporary art, some of them world-known

One gallery photographed from the second floor of another.

 

 

  • Why is this neighborhood the most intellectual on the planet? The answer concerns 16th-century Protestants...

 

 

Unexpected Paris guided tours