Île Nord

Île Nord is the upper half of the island of Saint-Louis, the part you arrive in off the Faidherbe bridge. The streets are straight and narrow, laid out in the eighteenth century, lined with two-storey houses with wooden galleries, louvred shutters and courtyards full of bougainvillea; many have been restored since the 2000 UNESCO listing, others are waiting, their doors open onto walls that stand out of habit.

This is the quarter of institutions and historic hotels. The Hôtel de la Poste, just off the bridge, housed the Aéropostale pilots who stopped here between Toulouse and Dakar — Jean Mermoz had his room there, and the bar still has the same counter. Around it: Place Faidherbe, the governor's building, schools, art galleries, cafés where breakfast is taken at seven before the heat rises.

In the evening Île Nord slows to walking pace: the light falls on ochre façades, horse-drawn carts go by at walking pace, children play football on the squares, and you hear the river on both sides at once. In December the fanals — big paper lanterns built by each neighbourhood — parade through these streets at Christmas, a tradition inherited from the nineteenth-century signares.

Everything is on foot: the bridge, both banks, Guet Ndar opposite, the restaurants, the market. A car is only useful here for parking badly.

The old houses have four-metre ceilings and wooden shutters: cool in the afternoon without air conditioning, and loud in the evening, because sound passes from one courtyard to the next as though the walls were not there. That is the island's trade-off, and the regulars take it gladly. Otherwise, the restaurants and galleries fit into three streets, the island's small market supplements Sor's for everyday shopping, and horse-drawn carts replace taxis on short trips, for five hundred francs and at the speed of a hot horse.