Heading south from the Panthéon, you quickly leave other tourists behind as you penetrate the academic heart of the Quartier Latin, lorded over by the Curie and oceanographic institutes and the elite École Normale Supérieure, on rue d'Ulm. Definitely more supérieure than normale, its students – dubbed normaliens – are France's academic elite, bred for top arts jobs in universities and lycées. It's a closed world to outsiders, and there's not much point in coming this far south unless it's to see the magnificent Baroque church of Val-de-Grâce (Sat & Sun 2–5pm), set just back from rue St-Jacques. Built by Anne of Austria as an act of pious gratitude following the birth of her first son in 1638, the church is a suitably awesome monument to the young prince who went on to reign as Louis XIV, with its dome and double-pedimented facade thrusting skywards. The old Benedictine convent adjoining the church to the south was turned into a military teaching hospital after the Revolution, and it remains one of Paris's main hospitals. The first floor of the cloister is now home to the Musée du Service de Santé des Armées (Sat & Sun 1.30–5pm; €4.50), an extraordinarily thorough history of military medicine. The mock-ups of field hospitals and gory details of prosthetic limbs and reconstructive plastic surgery aren't for the faint-hearted.Around the corner from the hospital, the busy boulevard de Port-Royal forms the boundary with the 13e arrondissement; from here it's just a short step west to the bright lights and brasseries of Montparnasse.
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