The true spirit of St Germain is to be found in its famous bookshops.
Saint Germain des Prés sounds like the Mecca of chic chicks and dandys with great wits, with its own codes and landmarks. Book lovers will enjoy a walk through this district where every prestigious publisher has an address, most often an historic one. Even some famous cafés have become symbols of this intellectual tradition. The “village” with 17th-century buildings has an impressive list of bookshops, notably American and English ones such as Village Voice or the legendary Shakespeare & Company where Hemingway, Fitzgerald and other writers of the Lost Generation used to meet. Art books are also left behind with the Taschen bookshop and the highly trendy bookstore 7L, owned by Karl Lagerfeld who thus reveals some of his tastes and inspirations.