Paris: The Birthday Trip - Day 3 (part 1)

Monday, July 29, 2013

We began this morning with a walk to the Jardin du Luxembourg. It wasn't far and gave us a pleasant, easy start to the day. This garden, the second largest in Paris (the Tuileries is the largest and oldest), is the garden of the French Senate which meets in the Luxembourg Palace (photo above). We'll just give you our impressions - for a brief historical note you should visit Wikipedia.

These photos may give the impression of a rigourously formal garden but the overall effect is one of a perfect balance between organized garden and casual woodland walk. We saw children running around the large pond while their watchful parents sat and talked and other families wandered along the paths among the trees. A man was setting the sails of model boats and turning them loose on the pond (Denise spoke to him in hesitant french and he, happy to find someone taking an interest, explained, in broken english that he could control them by radio-control but preferred to see them sail "free to go with the wind"). We saw several groups of firemen and students from a military college running the jogging trails for exercise. There were a few older (retired?) people sitting on the chairs and benches scattered along the walkways and some of these older visitors were carefully unwrapping meals (breakfast?) which they would eat while contemplating one of the sculptures, or reading, or just sitting quietly and enjoying the garden.

The sculptures, some of classical subjects and many honouring artists, writers, poets, engineers, scientists, and so on, may be in the open or hidden among the trees and bushes to be discovered by the determined seeker (I believe there are about 80). Some are simple busts while others are quite ornate. Do some, like a sculpture of lion standing over an ostrich that it has obviously just killed, have a story behind them or did the artist or patron just consider the subject interesting?

The Jardin du Luxumbourg isn't 'just' a pretty place to visit and relax - it has other functions as well: In the southwest corner of the garden there is an orchard, about 200 years old, where espaliered apple and pear trees produce 600 varieties of these fruits. We watched gardeners carefully placing little white envelopes over the blossoms. We also discovered an enclosure protecting the beehives of a bee-keeping school (don't get too close!). Keep wandering and you will find tennis courts, chess and card tables, Pétanque courts, a bandstand, and an open-air cafe - where we, of course, stopped for coffee.

It is impossible to cover an entire day with one post so we will continue to divide each day into appropriate (or at least coherent) sections. See you next time!

Previously: Day 1, Day 2 (part 1), Day 2 (part 2), Day 2 (part 3)

Next: Day 3 (part 2)