Our
stop
Quai du Louvre, Paris 1st arrondissement. Go from
the pyramid forming the entry to the Louvre towards the quays and then
turn right without crossing Pont du Carrousel. Walk for 100 metres along
the quay and go down the steps to the river.
The quarter
In 1816, a large crowd went to the port at the Louvre
to watch the docking of the Elise, the first steamboat. Today, the crowd
comes to the museum, the home port for art from all over the world. To
expand, the Louvre got rid of the Ministry of Finance civil servants who
used a wing of the building until the mid-1980s. Going towards the Opera,
the beginning of the Japanese quarter of Paris, side-by-side with the
luxury boutiques of Faubourg St-Honoré and the antique shops in the Louvre
des Antiquaires. The quarter is also a quiet paradise abandoned to bankers
now that the National Library and its readers have moved to a new river
bank site. With the Tuileries and the quays, this stop is also the one
for the nearest Paris gets to beach establishments. |