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Walking through Paris in search of new tricks and hot spots for readers of Paris-Eiffel-tower-news.com, I realized that I had neglected one of its most classic locations, despite the fact I often take time to prowl around the "booksellers" (booksellers) banks of the Seine.

Stretching over a mile in the center of Paris with Notre Dame in the background, and with narrow streets and popular restaurants in the Latin Quarter a few steps away, this must rank among the top Any list of classic Parisian experience.

The relics of a bygone era

For me, nothing embodies the essence of Paris booksellers over the Seine, which were "part of the furniture" hundreds of years now. They are quite unique in Paris: I know of no other city in the world that can boast such a range of book retailers.

The booksellers first appearance in the mid 16th century, when they exchanged their goods from carts, often illegally, as they sell illegal Protestant pamphlets during the Crusades.

It was after the French Revolution, however, that the booksellers of the Seine has really started to flourish: they had access to entire libraries confiscated by the rich, even if it was not until the late 19th century they obtained the right to permanently drop their receiver boxes on the stone wall of the River.

After 1952, the size of the boxes and even their color became officially regulated.

All of a priceless antiques Publications

Today you will find shelves of bookshops, which extends over a mile on both sides of the Seine around the Ile de la Cited, Pont Marie from the Quai du Louvre on the right, and Wharf to Wharf Tournelle Malaquais left.

In this idyllic and with Notre Dame in the background you can dig all kinds of antique prints and engravings, old issues of Paris Match (a news magazine of national scope), maps, old books, books old, rare books, comic books, posters, postcards, souvenirs and other stuff.

The stalls consist mainly of boxes bolted to the stone wall of the riverbank, which are locked at night. Although some of their products are now strictly for tourists, there are still many rare and valuable to the serious amateur.

You never know what you come across while rummaging in bookshops collections, and if they do not have what you want, some even say they'll find it for you, it's their job to guard the treasures traffic that might otherwise perish.

There is even a well-know story told in Wollcott Alexander Burns, all of Rome, tells the novelist Anne Parrish when there is a copy of Jack Frost and Other Stories to a bookseller. It was his favorite book back to his childhood days in a nursery in Colorado Springs, but she failed to see a copy of it until then. The story goes that whenshe showed his conclusion to her husband, opened it to find it inscribed on the flyleaf, "Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs.

Today, the booksellers of the Seine, numbering about 250, and their trade is well regulated: they must be open for business a minimum of four days per week, regardless of weather or pedestrian traffic, and not more like a box of four is allowed to contain "souvenirs" - the rest should be the literary material.

Interview with a bookseller

Some booksellers are talkers, others less, but I still managed to land on one that likes the chin-stirring as much as I do. I was lucky to find a conversation of 64 A.