Until you have seen the 6th arrondissement of Paris, you have not seen Paris. Sure you may have visited the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, shopped in Lafayette and ridden up and down the Seine on the Bateaux Mouches but chances are that you weren’t rubbing shoulders with the French while you were doing it. Chances are, it was elbow-to-elbow tourists. As the most expensive district in Paris to buy property, I think it’s fair to say that 6eme (or 6e) is where the Parisians are. And if they aren’t here, they want to be.

The main draw of the sixth arrondissement is Saint Germain des Prés. Back in the day this was the favored writing spot of such literary legends and intellectuals as Sartre, Beauvoir and Ernest Hemmingway who scribbled away in the world-famous café, Les Deux Magots, now a favorite lunch spot for visitors along with nearby Café de Flore. The latter was similarly popular among creative thinkers from all generations, feeding Truman Capote and Juliette Gréco as well as the Sartre/Beauvoir/Hemmingway set. As time went on 6e became less struggling-artist and more bohemian chic. The fashion crowd moved in and Café de Flore started to feed Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy and Karl Lagerfeld. Next through the door was Hollywood – Sharon Stone, Robert de Niro, Johnny Depp and Cher.

Some very stylish macaroons

Somewhere between Sartre and Cher things changed in St-Germain. Today the area is less of a bohemian mecca (they’re called bobos now for bourgeois bohemians and they live out in the 10th) and more of a shopping hub. Those in the know forsake the Champs-Élysées and Lafayette in favor of up-and-coming designers who rent boutiques in the 6th arrondissement. The district is also heaven for vintage shoppers as well as having a lot of Paris’s flagship chain stores. Café culture does still pervade here however, and there is hardly a better place to sip coffee and devour exotically flavored macaroons than St-Germain.

On a sunny day 6e is wonderful as home to Jardin du Luxembourg. A sprawling 23-hectare park on the top of a hill, the Luxembourg Gardens is hands-down the number one spot for people watching and character studies in Paris. The park has the most extraordinary cross-section of people. Here you have children sailing old boats in the pond; young women gossiping and sunning themselves on the garden’s distinctive green lawn chairs; young men checking out the talent; old women dozing in the shade; and elderly men playing competitive games of boules. The park has its own orchard, six tennis courts, horticulture school and orangery, not to mention the old palace which houses the all-important French Senate. If it’s sunny and you’re in Paris it is almost criminal not to grab a picnic and spend the day here. For the recipe for a perfect picnic, see our blog post here.

Jardin du Luxembourg - best for people watching

While struggling artists may not inhabit the tiny studios of 6eme anymore, their art has still found a home here. Once you’ve done the Louvre and Musée D’Orsay, or if you’re looking for something a little less hyped, this is the district to visit. Perhaps the best known space is the Musée Rodin which is more like a sublimely decorated manicured garden than a museum. The museum is named after the artist who created most of its works – Auguste Rodin. You probably know his masterpiece The Thinker but he has others that are just as fantastic. There are many museums housed around the 6th and 7th arrondissements in the maisons particulier (private mansions) and the homes of famous artists. For Jean Dubuffet’s Art Brut work head to the Fondation Dubuffet. For Russian artists Atelier and Ossip Zadkine go to Musée Atelier Zadkine and for some of Eugène Delacroix’s lesser known works (Liberty Leading the People is of course housed in the Louvre) you can visit his old home at Musée National Eugène Delacroix.

The Thinker in Musée Rodin

Before there were writers and artists and bohemians in the sixth arrondissement, there were churches and at the center of St-Germain is one of Paris’s most famous churches – the cathedral that was the country’s most important before Notre Dame was built – Église St-Germain des Prés. Built in the 11th century on the site of a 6th century abbey, this is the oldest standing church in Paris. That said, much of it has been rebuilt since but the tomb of St Germanus, the first bishop of Paris who died in 576, still sits in what is left of the 6th century abbey.

Another church that gets a lot of attention around here, but for a completely different reason is Église St-Sculpice. The church is spectacular with 21 side chapels that took six architects 150 years to build. The visitors that arrive in their droves however, are not here because they are religious architect buffs. They’re here because this church was one of the main scenes in Dan Brown’s prolific book The Da Vinci Code and the subsequent film adaptation.

Église St-Germain des Prés

While Hollywood fans ooh and ahh at St-Sculpice, religious visitors and pilgrims shuffle into Chapelle Notre Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse. This is the spot where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a young nun in 1830. Apparently the apparition told her to produce medals that would protect the wearers from harm and disease. The nun did as she was told and just as she was distributing the first medals in 1832, an epidemic of cholera gripped the city. Those that wore the medals were spared or even cured of the disease and, as a result believers still wear Miraculous Medals today to keep them safe from harm.

So whether you're going shopping; looking for an off-the-beaten-track museum; searching for a green space to sprawl out on in sunny weather; trying to relive Paris's glory days as an intellectual hub; or even if you're in Paris to explore it's churches, there really is nowhere quite like the sixth arrondissement.