I have long wanted to jot down some thoughts about some of my favourite places in Paris. Meaning to eventually present these as an appropriately georeferenced set with appropriate navigation, for now I thought I would add them as simply blog entries. When I thought about where to start, it took me all of a second to ecide to begin with one of my absolutely favourite spots: The Luxembourg Gardens.
There are a plethora of wonderful gardens in Paris, but the Luxembourg is a favourite for a variety of great reasons:
- Convenient
- Adjacent
- Sustantial
- Gorgeous
- Clean
- Safe
The gardens and the Palais de Luxembourg date the seventeenth century and the construction of the palace and surroundings for Marie de Medici. The garden is surrounded by a wall and the garden/park itself is intersected by pedestrian avenues or crushed stone. It is centred on a fountain/large grassy area (I can’t remember which guise it is in right now). There are polite city forests and wonderful statuary surrounding the main promenades.
What I like most particularly about the gardens are the wonderful seats. They can be dragged to any place one desires and come in three flavours. There are the standard upright, like a standard chair type (really great in combination with others for your feet), slightly reclined ones and the best: full reclined spacious metal lounges that are not unlike a Parisian version of an Adirondack deck chair. Getting to the garden early enough means you get your pick of both chair and spot and you can find a wonderfully sheltered spot close to the wall around the central water, and spend the day reading, writing and simply taking in the ambiance of this very special environment.
The central ‘plaza’ area always had this wonderful, huge wading pool in which children rented little sailing boats and pushed them about. Just a really nice ‘park’ kind of thing to do. However, if I am to believe Google Maps (after the Katrina thing I am ever so slightly skeptical), it looks as though this area has been filled in and is just a grassy area now. Maybe its a seasonal, annual thing…I sure hope that is the case.
The area around the Luxembourg also makes it superbly situated. In the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne and the Pantheon, it is also near the entrance to the Catacombs (about them in a further entry). There are all sort of wonderful eating opportunities in the area, many of which re great takeaway food that you can return to the park with. I really like this little Japanese yakatori place, a three minute walk from my seat in the park.
On a more somber note, the wall to the northeast is the site where Marshall Michel Ney (the Bravest of the Brave) was executed in 1815 for his part in Napoleon’s return to power. This tragedy is not without its controversy, both due to the circumstances of Ney’s court martial as well as the persistent rumours that he was able to escape to the United States following Napoleon’s second abdication and lived out his days as a rural school master.
The Luxembourg Gardens are easily accessed, both by foot walking south from the Seine having crossed the Pont Neuf, or via the Luxembourg Metro station which deposits you right at the northeast gate of the park.