Museums.artTickets
Number 17 of 20 in Paris

The Latin Quarter and the Panthéon: the hill of the students

On the Left Bank, opposite Notre-Dame, a hill of narrow streets has been full of students for eight hundred years. At the top of it France buries its great.

The portico, pediment and dome of the Panthéon in Paris against a blue sky.
Jebulon, Public domain
What it is
Walk
Time to allow
2 to 3 hours
Cost
Free to walk, ticket for the Panthéon
Best time
Late afternoon, into the evening

Paris this week

    Why the Latin Quarter is worth it

    The quarter takes its name from the language its students once spoke in the street. The Sorbonne is still here, and so are the bookshops, the cheap restaurants and the cafés that go with a university. It is the part of Paris that has changed its character least.

    The streets climb the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève to the Panthéon. Louis XV had it built, from 1758, as a church to the patron saint of Paris, to the designs of Jacques-Germain Soufflot. It was finished in 1790, in time for the Revolution, which the next year turned it into a temple to the great men of the nation. The words are still over the door: Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante.

    Voltaire and Rousseau lie in the crypt, and Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Louis Braille and Marie Curie, the first woman buried here on her own merit, in 1995. Josephine Baker joined them in 2021.

    What to see

    1. The Panthéon

      A vast cold nave under a dome 83 metres high, and beneath it the crypt of the great. The scale is the point: it was built to rival St Peter's in Rome.

    2. Foucault's pendulum

      In 1851 the physicist Léon Foucault hung a pendulum 67 metres long from the dome to show that the Earth turns. A copy swings in the same place.

    3. The streets below

      The rue Mouffetard, a market street running downhill from the Panthéon, and the lanes around the church of Saint-Séverin, the oldest part of the quarter.

    4. Shakespeare and Company

      The English-language bookshop on the river, facing Notre-Dame, where generations of writers have slept among the shelves.

    How to do it well

    • Walk it uphill, from the river at Saint-Michel to the Panthéon, and come down by the rue Mouffetard.
    • Avoid the restaurants with menus in six languages around the rue de la Huchette. Two streets further in, the food is better and cheaper.
    • The Panthéon is cold inside, in every season. Keep your coat on.
    • In the warm months the colonnade around the dome can be climbed, for a view of the whole Left Bank.
    • The Luxembourg Gardens are five minutes west of the Panthéon. The two fit together in one afternoon.

    Where it is

    Address

    Place du Panthéon, 5th arrondissement

    Nearest station

    Cardinal Lemoine, on line 10, or Luxembourg, on RER B

    Museums and sights nearby

    Distances are in a straight line.

    Tickets and tours: Latin Quarter and the Panthéon

    Latin Quarter and the Panthéon: common questions

    Who is buried in the Panthéon in Paris?
    Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Louis Braille, Marie Curie and Josephine Baker, among many others whom France has chosen to honour.
    Why is it called the Latin Quarter?
    Because Latin was the language of the university, and for centuries the students who filled the district spoke it in the streets.
    What is Foucault's pendulum?
    An experiment of 1851. The physicist Léon Foucault hung a pendulum 67 metres long under the dome of the Panthéon, and the slow turning of its swing showed that the Earth rotates. A copy hangs there today.
    How much time do you need for the Latin Quarter?
    Allow 2 to 3 hours. That is this site's estimate for an unhurried visit.

    What visitors say about the Latin Quarter

    Rating from Google

    4.6

    70,053 ratings on Google

    Google's figures as read on 4 October 2026.

    Read every review on Google

    Things to do near the Latin Quarter

    The nearest of this site's best things to do in the city. Distances are in a straight line.

    All 20 things to do in Paris

    Artists to see near the Latin Quarter

    The museums nearest to here, and the most famous artists on show in each.

    All artists

    Hotels near the Latin Quarter

    The five-star hotels closest to it, of those this site lists in Paris. Distances are in a straight line.

    All 20 hotels in Paris, ranked
    All 20 things to do in ParisMuseums and attractions in Paris