| The pivotal point of the Quartier Latin is place St-Michel, where the tree-lined boulevard St-Michel begins. The name is redolent of student chic, though these days dull commercial outlets have largely taken over the famous "boul' Mich". Nevertheless, the cafés and shops around place St-Michel and place St-André-des-Arts are jammed with people, mainly young and, in summer, largely foreign, while the fountain on the place is a favourite meeting spot. The touristy scrum is at its ugliest on and around rue de la Huchette, just east of the place St-Michel. The only sign of the street's former incarnation as the mecca of beats and bums in the post-World War II years is the Théâtre de la Huchette, which still shows Ionesco's Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Prima Donna) almost fifty years on; the rest is given over to cheap bars and Greek seafood-and-disco tavernas of indifferent quality and inflated prices. Connecting rue de la Huchette to the riverside is the evocatively named rue du Chat-qui-Pêche (Fishing Cat Street), a narrow slice of medieval Paris as it used to look before Haussmann set to work clearing the way for the boulevards. One word of warning: watch your wallet amid the bustling crowds; this area, particularly around the place, is known for its pickpockets and petty thieves. At the end of rue de la Huchette, rue St-Jacques is aligned along the main street of Roman Paris, its name derived from the vastly popular medieval pilgrimage to the shrine of St Jacques (St James) in Santiago de Compostela, northern Spain. For the millions who set out from the church of St-Jacques (only the tower remains), just across the river, this bit of hill was their first taste of the road. One block south of rue de la Huchette, and west of rue St-Jacques, stands the mainly fifteenth-century church of St-Séverin, with its entrance on rue des Prètres St-Séverin (Mon–Sat 11am–7.15pm, Sun 9am–8.30pm; M° St-Michel/Cluny-La Sorbonne). It's one of the city's most elegant churches, with splendidly virtuoso chiselwork in the pillars of the Flamboyant choir, as well as stained glass by the modern French painter Jean Bazaine. The flame-like carving that gave the flamboyant (blazing) style its name flickers in the window arch above the entrance, while inside, the first three pillars of the nave betray the earlier, thirteenth-century origins of the church. One block to the south of the church, rue de la Parcheminerie is where medieval scribes and parchment sellers used to congregate. It's worth cricking your neck to look at the decorations on the facades, including that of no. 29, where you'll find the Canadian-run Abbey Bookshop.
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