Rue Mouffetard, Paris

Rue Mouffetard is the lively historic street unfolding through Paris’s Latin Quarter, lined with cafés, restaurants, small shops, and market stalls. Its character gathers around Place de la Contrescarpe, while a permanent open-air market continues near Square Saint-Médard. Much of the week, ordinary motor traffic is excluded, giving this slope a strongly pedestrian atmosphere.

The route follows an ancient line. It began as a Roman road linking the settlement on the Left Bank with the road leading toward Italy, and later became the main thoroughfare of the Faubourg Saint-Médard. Its position on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève helped preserve the neighbourhood from Baron Haussmann’s redevelopment during Napoleon III’s reign.

There is a remarkable story attached to number 53. When a house there was demolished in May 1938, workers found a hidden cache belonging to Louis Nivelle, an advocate under Louis XV: 3,556 gold coins, most bearing the king’s likeness. At number 60, the Pot-de-Fer fountain dates in its present form from the eighteenth century; its earlier water supply came through the Arcueil aqueduct. This street’s strongest impression is still wonderfully immediate: food, commerce, and a very old route compressed into a bustling pedestrian scene.