Category Archives: Latin Quarter

Le Petit Prince de Paris: A Latin Quarter Gem

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One of the truly great Parisian restaurants is Le Petit Prince de Paris, a quintessentially French hideaway located in the midst of a warren of tiny cobblestone streets in the city’s Latin Quarter just a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. The only LGBT restaurant on the city’s Left Bank, Le Petit Prince de Paris is housed in a site that has served as a tavern and restaurant since the year 1450. That ancient building provides the restaurant with much of its yesteryear charm, including exposed ceiling beams, pale stone walls, plush draperies, antique furnishings and dozens of candles and chandeliers. Continue Reading →

Saint Etienne du Mont: A Gothic Gem

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There are many huge—and hugely popular—churches in Paris that make it onto most tourists’ must-see lists: Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Saint Sulpice, etc. But the City of Light is home to more than 125 churches, and some of the most interesting and most beautiful are among the less-popular and out-of-the-way houses of worship. One that’s definitely worth a visit is Saint Etienne du Mont in the Latin Quarter just a block from the more-often toured Pantheon. Why should you add Saint Etienne to your sight-seeing itinerary? Not only does the church’s history stretch back more than 1,500 years but it also contains the shrine of Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of the City of Paris. And it’s one of the rare churches in the world (outside of Italy) where two Popes have held Mass. Continue Reading →

Spring Has Sprung at the Jardin des Plantes

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Springtime in Paris is simply glorious. All of the flowers in the city’s parks start to bloom, the trees start to blossom, those bone-chilling breezes off the Seine turn more pleasant than polar, and the Parisians who hunkered down for the winter suddenly seem incapable of staying inside one minute longer. A fantastic way to experience le printemps in the City of Light is by visiting one of Paris’s grand parks. For springtime sights, sounds and smells, I’m partial to the Jardin des Plantes, an enormous botanical garden in the Latin Quarter. Continue Reading →