Our
stop
Quai de Montebello, Paris 5th arrondissement: go
upstream along the quays for about a hundred metres from the Pont au Double,
and take the stairs down to the river.
The quarter
Rue de la Bûcherie is a reminder that the boat berths
where there used to be a port to land firewood for Paris. And even
if this lively quarter between the Sorbonne and the Seine is not
as hot as it was in 1968, it still attracts students from all over
the world, who speak all languages—except Latin, whose use
by scholars gave the Latin Quarter its name.
The heart of Paris lies across the bridge, because the city was
indeed founded on Ile de la Cité. 'Lutetia', the old name
of Paris, is Celtic for 'dwelling in the middle of the waters'.
The island was the kings' residence under the fourteenth century.
They built two Gothic masterpieces (Notre-Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle),
their palace (now the law courts), a hospital (Hôtel-Dieu)
and a barracks that has become the Prefecture de Police.
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