![Saint-Germain-des-Prés Saint-Germain-des-Prés](https://media.timeout.com/images/105968528/750/562/image.jpg)
1. Saint-Germain-des-Prés
For the five-star Parisian experience, it has to be Saint-Germain-des-Prés. From existentialism to jazz, this is where Paris’s key 20th-century cultural movements thrived, where Godard and Giacometti shared cafés and bookshops with Sartre and de Beauvoir. That golden age lives on in the many independent stores and boutiques, and for authentic café culture, Saint-Germain takes some beating. By day, chill out around the lakes and palm trees of the nearby Jardin du Luxembourg and when night falls, the Latin Quarter around the Sorbonne is where you’ll find buzzing, student-packed pubs, bars and clubs. Shopping is high end, with designers from Cartier to Sonia Rykiel based in Saint-Germain. Restaurants can be hit and miss, so go with storied institutions such as Paris’s oldest restaurant Le Procope, or Fish La Boissonnerie for exquisite seafood.