The fifteenth arrondissement is located in southwest Paris on the Left Bank of the Seine River. Its land area slightly exceeds 3.2 square miles (a tad over 8.5 square kilometers). It is the most highly populated arrondissement with some two hundred twenty five thousand residents and provides almost one hundred fifty thousand jobs.
The Gare Montparnasse is one of six large Parisian railway stations. It first opened in 1840 and started to expand only a few years later. In 1895 a runaway train rode through a two foot (sixty centimeter) wall, left the premises, and toppled onto the street thirty feet (ten meters) below. The train finished this wild tour on its nose, as shown on the cover of the Lean Into It album produced by the hard rock group Mr. Big. No passengers were killed in this grand voyage, but several were injured and a passerby was killed.
On August 25, 1944 the German military governor of Paris, General von Choltitz, surrendered to the French General Philippe Leclerc at the old Montparnasse train station. Happily enough von Cholitz disobeyed Adolf Hitler's direct order to destroy the city as dramatized in the 1966 Franco-American movie Is Paris Burning?. This movie was disappointing at the box office, perhaps because it was hard to follow for those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the French Resistance.
Twenty-five years later this historic station was torn down and replaced with the Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower) at the time Europe's tallest building. Two years after it was built skyscrapers were banned in central Paris, but... Do you remember Guy de Maupassant's joke about the Eiffel Tower restaurant (if not, see our article on the Seven Arrondissement)? They make the same joke about the Montparnasse Tower.
In 1995 the French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, climbed to the top of the building using only his bare hands and feet and no safety devices whatsoever. (Don't try this at home kids.) He started his career at age twelve when he was accidentally locked out of the family's eighth-floor apartment. Alain continued learning his trade in the French Alps. He suffers from vertigo, a type of dizziness, from two accidents. And yes, he has also climbed the Eiffel Tower as well as many other skyscrapers over the world. For a change of pace he climbed the Golden Gate Bridge.
La Ruche (The Beehive) is a weird-looking three-story circular structure that resembles a gigantic beehive more than human living quarters. It was designed by Gustave Eiffel as a temporary wine rotunda for the Exposition Universelle (Universal Exposition) of 1900. You know what other temporary building he designed. The French sculptor Alfred Boucher had the building dismantled and re-erected as inexpensive artist studios that attracted the usual group of hangers-on as well. Can you imagine living in Paris surrounded by artists and paying almost no rent? Admittedly La Ruche wasn't the Champs Elysees but not everyone's idea of Paris is the Champs Elysees. It was near a famous canteen described in our companion article on the fourteenth district.
The list of its former residents includes many of the greatest painters and artists of the early Twentieth Century. This historic complex came close to being "redeveloped" in the early 1970s but was saved and is still used as art studios. Only the exterior is available for general viewing and you should really stop by. The Musee du Montparnasse (Montparnasse Museum) on the site of the old canteen contains quite a collection from the Ruche's days of glory. It is just over the border in the fourteenth arrondissement.
Front de Seine (also known as Beaugrenelle) is a mixed commercial and residential highrise development along the Seine River. The complex includes about twenty three-hundred feet (one-hundred meter) buildings constructed around an elevated esplanade paved with frescoes that are only visible from the upper floors. I know where I'd rather live.
Aquaboulevard is Europe's largest aquatic indoor recreational park. Water lovers will find waves, slides, and swimming pools. The site includes tennis and squash courts, and a fitness center. If you are not in an athletic mood or have finished your workout there are seven restaurants and a fourteen-screen movie theater on site. Enjoy yourself.
The giant Palais des Sports (Sports Palace) hosts hockey and basketball games plus large-scale musicals and rock concerts. Don't confuse this building with the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy in the twelfth district across Paris. Given Parisian traffic, if you go to the wrong one you'll probably miss your show. This 1960 building was used as a detention center in the Paris massacre of 1961 during the Algerian War of Independence.
I have a confession to make. Until recently I was under the impression that Paris was home to a single still functioning vineyard, one outside this district. Live and learn. The village of Vaugirard was already exporting its well-known wines in 1453 at the end of the Hundred Years War. After 1786 when toll walls were built around Paris the city residents crossed them on Sundays and holidays to drink Vaugirard wine, eat strawberries and peas, and dance to the sound of fiddles, musettes, and oboes. I'm reminded of the Goose That Laid The Golden Egg when I read that the money-grubbing winegrowers of Vaugirard replaced their wines with a new stock that yielded much more wine, but of a lower quality. The consumers weren't fooled for long and by 1810 Vaugirard saw its last vineyard. The last until 1985 when the Clos des Morillons vineyard in the Parc Georges Brassens was replanted with seven hundred Pinot Noir vines. Each vine yields on average about 2.2 pounds (one kilo) of grapes in September or October. The following summer you can enjoy the wine, which is said to be fairly good.
Of course you don't want to be in Paris without sampling fine French wine and food. In my article I Love French Wine and Food - A Burgundy Aligote I reviewed such a wine and suggested a sample menu: Start with Jambon Persille (Ham in Parsleyed Aspic). For your second course savor Rable de Lievre a la Piron (Saddle of Hare with Shallots and White Wine). And as dessert indulge yourself with Mousse au Chocolat (Chocolate Mousse.) Your Parisian sommelier (wine steward) will be happy to suggest appropriate wines to accompany each course.
The 5th arrondissement is on the Left Bank of the Seine River in central Paris. It is often known as the Quartier Latin (Latin Quarter) even though it's been a long time since many people have spoken Latin there. The population is slightly under sixty thousand and the district provides almost fifty thousand jobs. It is fairly small; in fact less than a square mile (about two and a half square kilometers). This arrondissement is one of the oldest districts in all Paris and offers some attractions dating back to the time of the Romans who never called it the Latin Quarter. The Roman town Lutetia was built in the First Century BC.
The Arenes de Lutece (Lutetia Arena) once held at least fifteen thousand spectators and considerably fewer gladiators. It was built in the First Century AD and included the longest Roman amphitheater. The 135 foot (over 40 meter) long stage hosted plays as well as gladiator fights. There were probably animal cages as well, surely not for the plays. The upper level held the poor, the slaves, and women while the lower level was reserved for the big shots. Just in case the spectators got bored they did have a great view of the Seine River.
The city was sacked by barbarians in the year 280 and some of its stone was removed to build up the defenses. The arena was subsequently transformed into a cemetery, and then filled with the construction of city walls in the early Thirteenth Century. The arena was more or less forgotten; nobody knew where it was but neighborhood kept its name. The arena was accidentally rediscovered in the 1860s during the construction of a streetcar depot on the site. The famous Nineteenth Century writer Victor Hugo played a major role in preserving these ruins. The area became a public square in 1896 and is open to the public daily and evenings in the summer.
The Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) was established in 1980 by eighteen Arab countries and France. The Institute provides information about the Arab world and promotes its cultural and spiritual values. The Institute also supports cooperation and cultural exchanges between France and the Arab world, especially in science and technology. In 1989 it won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
The Jardin des Plantes is France's main botanical garden. It includes an aquarium, and a small zoo founded with animals from the royal menagerie at Versailles (not the two-legged variety). Its gardens include a rose garden, an alpine garden, an Art Deco winter garden, Australian and Mexican hothouses, and a maze.
The Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History) was founded during the French Revolution. It was quite a center of scientific research. One of the winners of the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics, Henri Becquerel, held its chair for Applied Physics when he accidentally discovered uranium's radioactivity. In what must be some sort of a record four generations of Becquerels held this chair from 1838 until 1948.
The Musee de Cluny, officially known as Musee National du Moyen Age (National Museum of the Middle Ages) is perhaps the most outstanding medieval building in Paris. It was the town house of the Abbots of Cluny, dating back to 1334 but was rebuilt in both Gothic and Renaissance style starting near the end of the Fifteenth Century. The Musee de Cluny has a fine collection of important medieval artifacts, in particular tapestries, Gothic sculptures, and illuminated manuscripts. Herman Melville mentioned this museum in his famous novel Moby Dick.
The Thermes de Cluny are what remains of Third Century Gallo-Roman baths. Its best-preserved section is the frigidarium, the cold-water pool in which bathers dipped to close their pores after enjoyed the hot-water sections. Some of the original decorative wall painting and mosaics remain intact. These baths were not well defended and probably destroyed by barbarians, those dirty barbarians, towards the end of the Third Century.
The Pantheon (from a Greek word meaning all the Gods) was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. It sits on top of Montagne Sainte-Genevieve and overlooks all Paris. While it is a great-looking building its architect died before completion, and not all his plans were followed. It had been meant as a church to honor the recovery of King Louis XV, but the French Revolution intervened and the Pantheon was transformed into a mausoleum. In alphabetical order, some of the great buried here include Braille, Dumas, Hugo, Marat (French Revolution leader disinterred after little more than a year), Moulin (French Resistance leader), Sklodowska-Curie, Soufflot (Pantheon's architect), Voltaire, and Zola.
The Latin Quarter is home to many universities and other centers of higher education, and naturally scads of bars, bistros, restaurants, and nightclubs. Some schools have relocated to more spacious quarters in other parts of the city or region, surely to the regret of their student population.
Of course you don't want to tour Paris without sampling fine French wine and food. My article I Love French Wine and Food - A Maconnais (Burgundy) Chardonnay reviewed such a wine and suggested a sample menu: Start with Pate en Croute de Grenouilles au Bleu de Bresse (Frog and Bresse Blue-Cheese Pie). For your second course savor Poulet de Bresse a la Creme-Trompettes de la Mort (Free-Range Bresse Chicken in Creamy Sauce with Horns of Plenty Mushrooms). And as dessert indulge yourself with Ile Flottante (Floating Island, a Meringue Island in a Custard Sea.) Your Parisian sommelier (wine steward) will be happy to suggest appropriate wines to accompany each course.
Levi Reiss has sinced written about articles on various topics from Touring Italy, Travel and Leisure and Food and Drink. Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet, but to be honest, he would rather just drink fine German, Italian, or other wine, accompanied by the right foods and the right people. He knows what dieting is, and is glad th. Levi Reiss's top article generates over 450000 views. to your Favourites.