Jardin du Luxembourg is a favorite park for Parisians and a wonderful outing for visitors, too. The open spaces and green lawns are backed by the stately Palais that was built in 1610 under the direction of Marie de Medici (that same Medici family from Florence, Italy), the widow of Henry IV and mother of Louis XIII. The palace is now home to the French Senate.
Jardin du Luxembourg was only a 20 minute walk from our apartment in Paris. Although it was a cloudy and cool day, we dined outside at a patisserie, Dalloyau, to have cafe express (espresso) and a just-baked pain au chocolate (chocolate filled croissant) for breakfast before visiting the gardens. We visited the gardens several years ago when our two sons were with us. We didn't venture through much of the gardens on that trip, so I was ready to see more of floral displays this time.
Wide gravel paths, in sun and in the shade, are filled with Parisians throughout the 22 hectare park. With the large size of the park, it doesn't fill crowded. This is a beautiful place to people watch... French queens, saints and mythological characters are among the sculptures that dot the landscape.
There are plenty of chairs circling the central pond where children maneuver their remote-controlled sailboats while mother ducks maneuver their tiny ducklings out of the way.
Flower beds are planted with seasonal annuals and large containers of orange trees are rolled out into the formal gardens in the spring. The French combination of tulips and forget-me-nots were in many of the flower beds. Wallflowers and dusty miller were also used in abundance in broad swaths of gardens. Formal, clipped miniature hedges were edging many of the gardens around the palace. There are informal cottage garden flowers mixed in large borders, even within the formal lines of the gardens.
For all the grandeur of the setting, the Jardin du Luxembourg is a relaxed park for everyone to enjoy.
Story and photos by Freda Cameron; Location: Paris, France; May 2009
15 comments:
Hi Cameron, yet another fantastic look at Paris. Even the breakfast sounded wonderful, chocolate filled anything gets my attention. I am on a bit of a wallflower kick lately, and was wondering what to combine with it. Silver leaves to cool it down, perfect! Thanks. :-)
Frances
I love tulips under planted with delicate Forget Me Nots. I can almost taste the croissant, but the coffee, I can't duplicate it! It was the best~~gail
OH! I see you visited my summer home while you were there! LOL I'm really enjoying all these beautiful pictures!--Randy
You got to see some really beautiful gardens on your trip! I bet it was exciting.
Another beautiful garden, this one a bit more formal and perfect for the castles.
Perfection. Wonderful food, lovely gardens and those stately old buildings. No wonder so many folks want to visit Paris in the springtime.
Marnie
Frances -- after this trip, I am a huge fan of wallflowers, too. I thought they came in just orange, but I love that deep purple-red. Yes, the silver foliage is a great companion.
Gail -- I regret not having eaten MORE pain au chocolate. I lost 2 lbs from all those croissants, quiche, hot chocolate (to die for), ice cream, crepes and 3 course meals. Obviously, I shouldn't have denied myself more! :-)
Randy -- I've seen your main home and your summer home, guess I'll have to let the world see your weekend home! Maybe tomorrow instead of Saturday. LOL
Dave -- We realized that we didn't give Paris a fair chance (compared with all the time we've spent in Rome) on past trips. This time, we really got to know her and there are more gardens than we had time to see.
Tina -- This is more like Central Park, a place for city-dwellers to be outside in spacious and beautiful spaces.
We did a makeover on the east wall of the house yesterday. I planted 3 containers, moved the park bench from the cottage garden to new space beside the waterfall; planted lavender and salvia in the space that was filled with too-large shrubs.
Added another Confederate jasmine -- the fragrance garden is filled with the blooms of the old and new jasmine and the sweet bay magnolia is blooming, too. Perfume! :-)
I've got to find a replacement bench for the cottage garden. The bronze metal bench that we moved out just disappeared against the bronze metal fence. Visitors walked past it all the time and never even saw it. I'm thinking something painted purple? :-)
Marnie -- We had been to Paris in June on a past trip, but with the boys along, so we weren't focused on gardens. It was wonderful to choose springtime for the gardens. I'm sure the gardens are fantastic in summer and fall, too.
The weather was like April here -- warm, sunny days OR cool, cloudy days. From the 50s to the 70s in daytime temps. Chilly evenings required jackets and I usually wore a light scarf around my neck.
We had only one day of light rain. We needed long sleeves and light jackets on most days, but a few days were warm enough to walk around without jackets. The key is to take light layers. I carried only one bag (a carry-on backpack) and we had a washer/dryer in the apartment.
A public space I'd like to be in.
Is dusty miller also known as Campion?
The campion (lychnis) that I have is stick like and branching with blooms (mine are deep pink). My dusty miller is just fern-shaped fronds of silver foliage.
Would you call this a Stately Manor and gardens? The profusion of color is wonderful, but at the same time quite controlled by the symmetrical beds. It would have been a wonderful visit. Are you finding favorite gardens?
This is a former palace, though we weren't allowed inside. It just feels like Central Park to me!
As for a favorite garden -- Monet's Gardens at Giverny.
What a fabulous park, so much beauty from the blooms and interesting statuary.
So beautiful and I can see why it felt peaceful. Love the buildings, too. So many pretty flowers it would be a sight to try to take in.
Great photos!
Your photos and these gardens are absolutely lovely, Cameron;-) I've not been to visit you in a while...and I've been thinking about all of the great posts and photos you've been sharing (that I've been missing!) from your trip to Paris. I'm still not sure what happened w/Charm? I'm looking all over your blog for hints...seems she was bitten by another dog? That happened to our standard poodle about 2 yrs. ago. Mike's cousin brought his rotweiler to Maine, (we go up every year to visit Mike's family)...we had taken our dog, James, with us too. We wanted him to enjoy the lake and swim, etc. Well, the rotweiler made sure James would get NO swimming in. He just reached out and sunk his teeth right into James. It was a horrible scene. We took James to the vet's where they had to perform surgery under anesthesia; the dog had bitten right through his muscles in his sides. Then they put a shunt in for drainage. We had to pour medicine in the tube several times a day and clean it out, etc. Plus, he was on antibiotics and a pain killer. It took almost 2 wks. before that shunt came out; and quite a lot more time until the area healed over and hair came back, etc. He's fine now though. I hope your dog will get well soon;-)
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