The Art of Flâneuring: Rue du Bac

I’ve walked Rue du Bac more times than I could possibly count.

Partly because I’ve stayed several times right around the corner, near Rue du Bac and Rue de Grenelle, in some wonderfully charming pieds-à-terre. Stay somewhere often enough, and you start to develop your little habits: the same bakery each morning and the same walk home at the end of the day; along with the same shops you always look in or bring something home from. This little pocket of Paris has become a bit like that for me, like home.

Which makes what I’m about to admit slightly embarrassing.

For all the times I’ve walked it and stayed near to it, I’d never really stopped to think about why it was called Rue du Bac.

My French is good enough to know that bac means ferry. Apparently, it wasn’t good enough to make me stop and ask why a street in the middle of Paris was named after one.

Turns out that this little word is the clue to where we need to begin.

So for this month’s Art of Flâneuring, we’re starting at the Seine and walking Rue du Bac from Pont Royal to Rue de Sèvres.

It’s just over a kilometre, which sounds like nothing. Except Rue du Bac is one of those streets where I can easily spend a few hours, if not an entire day, for there are endless shops and extraordinary history.

If you’d like to follow along, I’ve mapped the entire walk for you, including all the places, shops, cafés and little stops worth knowing along Rue du Bac (see bottom of post).

Come walk with me.