Saint-Germain-des-Prés is literary Paris — the cafés where Sartre and de Beauvoir debated existentialism, the jazz clubs where Miles Davis played, the galleries that launched modern art movements. The Jardin du Luxembourg provides a regal green heart. Today it's expensive and polished, but the intellectual DNA persists in the bookshops, galleries, and yes, even the cafés, if you look past the tourist crowds.
Well-dressed, moneyed, cultured. Publishers, gallery owners, and old-money Parisians mix with tourists on the main drags. The real character reveals itself on the side streets and in the less obvious cafés and bookshops.