Le Quartier Latin: This was adapted from an essay for class, so it's a little overblown...

Singing bro statues at the Pantheon

I think that many young tourists, when they think of Paris, are imagine the Latin Quarter. (Whether they realize or not.) Other parts of Paris are more modern and more grimy than what you imagine as you search for cheap tickets and pack suitcases full of striped shirts and what you think are stylish French shoes. (I don't even understand French fashion. Sometimes it's fabulous. A lot of times it's kind of orthopedic. A lot of times I'm not sure if someone is homeless or not.) What you imagine is a beautiful city, filled with mimes and dashing young men who read poetry. The Paris of our imaginations is picturesque, charming, and quaint. The Paris we see when we arrive is different. Dead birds. More homeless people than mimes. More catcalling creeps than dashing young men. But the Latin Quarter is surprisingly similar to the très chic sugarplum Paris in our heads.

Beige beige beige.

It's a bit more modern, a bit dirtier, and there are creeps and hobos; after all, Paris is a big city with big problems. But the Latin Quarter doesn't have a lot of graffiti or bars on the windows or gross new cement architecture housing sketch-sketch businesses. The buildings are old, and all beige. Light beige, dark beige, regular beige. The monochrome views look like Paris feels. Refined, serious, subtly lovely. Intellectuals, artists and students from all over the world yearn for Paris, and the Paris they yearn for is not expensive couture shops with big windows or those shady stores with windows completely covered in advertisements. It's beige stone and sculptures and centuries upon centuries of history in the very streets you walk on.

La Sorbonne

I don't love the latin Quarter because it's "so Paris,"and I don't regret that the seedy dirty (almost-)ugly parts of Paris exist. Every part of paris is equally Parisian, because that diversity is part of the Paris identity. But I love the Latin Quarter because to me, it represents what I loved about Paris before I even knew anything about it. Just that nebulous aura of poignant beauty and ancientness and glamour that makes everyone perk up a little when they hear "Paris."