VOL · ISUMMER 2026
stay cool
HOW IT WORKSCOVERAGEFIELD NOTESSee the demo →
← FROM THE FIELD · VOL. I, N° 70PLATE B · ELEVATION · SUN ALT 54°AFTERNOON · ÎLE SAINT-LOUIS
PLATE · ONE-POINT · LOOKING SOUTHWEST VILLAGE · GROVE STREET · 12 PM
PARIS · FIELD NOTES · 5 MIN

The quay side of the island.

Île Saint-Louis is small enough that you can pick a side and commit. Three walks that pick the shaded quay and stay on it.

By

Île Saint-Louis is a five-minute walk in any direction, which means every choice you make about which quay matters more than usual. The north (Quai d’Anjou) takes the building shade most of the morning; the south (Quai de Béthune) flips by 3. The east end is open to the river; the west end is where the islanders live and the planes work overtime.

Tap any pick — Stay Cool re-shades it against the current sun. If it’s 6 PM and you’re going to Berthillon, the app moves you to Quai d’Orléans automatically.

The picks · 3.Graded JUN 12, 2026
  1. 01
    Pont Marie to Berthillon

    Cross onto Quai d’Anjou, then duck through Rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Île. Building shade all the way until the door.

    Shade
    80%
    Walk
    5 min
    Best at
    12:30 pm
  2. 02
    Notre-Dame approach to the eastern tip

    Cross at Pont Saint-Louis, head east on the southern quay. Plane-tree canopy joins building shade by Quai d’Orléans.

    Shade
    76%
    Walk
    8 min
    Best at
    2:30 pm
  3. 03
    Pont de la Tournelle to Rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Île

    Skip the south quay entirely. The interior street is narrow enough that the buildings cover it all afternoon.

    Shade
    85%
    Walk
    4 min
    Best at
    4 pm

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About the author
Amar Braithwaite is the founder of Stay Cool. He builds shade-aware navigation tools and writes the Field Notes corpus on urban shade infrastructure. Read the why →

Walk in the shade.

Stay Cool computes a shadow-aware route for any city we map.

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