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. |