Île Saint-Louis

A single seventeenth-century street on an island, almost unchanged

Area Île Saint-Louis
Type Neighbourhood
Time needed 1h

The Île Saint-Louis is the smaller of the two Seine islands, laid out as a single speculative development in the 1610s and 1620s on what had been two uninhabited islets. One street, the Rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Île, runs its length, with the quais wrapping the outside and seventeenth-century houses on both. It is an hour of walking and an ice cream, not an attraction with an entrance.

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Getting there

Pont Marie on Métro line 7 is at the north-west corner, a minute from the bridge. Sully-Morland on line 7 and Cité on line 4 are each about six minutes, and Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame on RER B and C is ten. From Châtelet, line 7 reaches Pont Marie in five minutes, or you can simply walk along the Right Bank quais in a quarter of an hour. Four bridges connect it, including the Pont Saint-Louis footbridge across to the Île de la Cité and Notre-Dame.

What you see

Cross by the Pont Louis-Philippe or Pont Marie and walk the length of the main street. The frontages are the substance of it: tall pale stone houses, carved doorways, courtyards you can glimpse when a gate is open, and the Hôtel de Lauzun on the Quai d'Anjou, a 1650s mansion whose exterior and iron balcony are visible from the street. The church of Saint-Louis-en-l'Île, halfway along, has an iron clock projecting over the pavement and a surprisingly ornate interior. The island's long-standing ice cream maker sits on the same street and generally has a queue outside it. Then drop down to the quais and walk the outside edge: the Quai d'Orléans gives the best-known view of the apse and flying buttresses of Notre-Dame across the water, and the stone steps down to the water on the southern side are where people sit. Shops are galleries, cheese and bread, and souvenirs.

What to pair it with

Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité are across the Pont Saint-Louis. The Marais and the Place des Vosges are ten minutes north, and the Jardin des Plantes and the Institut du Monde Arabe are a similar walk south across the Pont de la Tournelle.

When to go

Early morning and after dark are when the street feels like the residential island it is. Afternoons in summer are a slow procession along a narrow pavement, and the ice cream queue is longest then. Spring and autumn weekdays are the best combination of open shops and few people. Note that August closes a good share of the island's businesses, the ice cream shop among them in some years.

What is hard about it

There is nothing to go into except the church, so if you want exhibits rather than a walk this will feel like very little. Pavements on the main street are barely one person wide with traffic alongside, and the quai views of Notre-Dame have been partly obscured by restoration works and hoardings. Everything on the island is priced for visitors, and the celebrated ice cream means a long queue for a small scoop, with closures on certain days and through parts of the summer. Expect no public toilets and few benches.

Common questions

How long do you need on the Île Saint-Louis?

About an hour: the main street one way, the quais back, and a stop for ice cream. Longer if you sit by the water.

Is there anything to visit on the island?

Only the church of Saint-Louis-en-l'Île, which is free to enter. The Hôtel de Lauzun and the other mansions are seen from outside.

Is it worth it just for the ice cream?

The ice cream is good and the walk is short, but the queue can be twenty minutes or more and the shop does not open every day. Treat the island as the point and the ice cream as the excuse.