The Rive Gauche or “left bank” is the unofficial name for an area of Paris south of the river Seine.
Stand on the Ponte Neuf near Notre Dame and face downstream (towards the Eiffel Tower). The left bank is on your left hand.
Famously the home of Parisian intellectual life, it includes Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Latin quarter, the Luxembourg Gardens and so on. Some famous associated personalities include including Colette, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I love wandering this area of course, and aside from a couple of major roads walking on the street in my wheelchair is no problem. The larger streets like St Germain have nice wide footpaths anyway.
We have stayed in a few hotels in this area. The Hotel St Vincent comes to mind.
