A visit to Paris’s fifth arrondissement can make you feel unusually nostalgic in the current climate. Home to the Sorbonne, student-filled cafés and all-round Rive Gauche cool, it’s a world away from France on the brink of change. Also known as the Latin Quarter, le cinquième has ready supplies of retro charm and specialist shops to browse and lose yourself in.
On an early-evening wander, I come across a shop on rue des Écoles that sells mandolins and a rare bookshop on rue du Cardinal-Lemoine with a window display of ironic protest material, including a copy of the Watergate Cookbook. Near the Seine, you’ll find the Jardin des Plantes botanical gardens and the Natural History Museum, all just a stone’s throw away.
