18 min
45 min
4 · 10 · 12 · RER B
47.7 / km²
18
13
2,403
+39% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Saint-Germain (6th)
The 6th is the one district where the cliche and the reality are the same building. The Jardin du Luxembourg is inside it and is the best park in central Paris. Rue de Buci and rue de Seine are galleries, food shops and restaurants at a density nowhere else manages. Notre-Dame is eighteen minutes on foot, the Louvre twenty-five, and the Latin Quarter starts at the eastern boundary.
What that costs is the highest price for an ordinary room in the city. A mid-range hotel here runs above a four-star in the 9th, and the difference buys you the address rather than the room, which will still be 14 square metres. The Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots charge accordingly for a coffee you can get for a third of the price one street back.
It is also quiet in the evening. This is a dinner-and-a-wine-bar district, not a going-out one: the boulevard Saint-Germain end goes still by midnight and the tourist strip along boulevard Saint-Michel is the one part to avoid eating in. Book here for a short trip where walking everywhere matters more than the rate.
What works
- The Jardin du Luxembourg is inside the district and open from dawn
- Eighteen minutes on foot to Notre-Dame, twenty-five to the Louvre
- The best concentration of food shops and galleries in central Paris
- Metro 4, 10 and 12, plus RER B at Luxembourg for the airport
What does not
- The highest rate in Paris for an ordinary mid-range room
- Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots price the address, not the coffee
- The boulevard Saint-Michel edge is a tourist-menu strip
- Quiet after midnight - this is not a going-out district
Unmissable though it may be, however, the charm of the 6th is such that you may risk not seeing much else of Paris!