Paris Guide©
Judy and Mel Croner
Copyright Judy and Mel Croner©All rights reserved and protected. Legal Notice.
Parks
If you get tired of touring or you've seen enough of the sights, there are some great parks for just sitting and watching people.
On the Left Bank, visit le Jardin de Luxembourg, 6e. Métro: Odeon, From the Métro stop, walk up the hill, away from the River. There are numerous fruit trees in the park which you can see. Each year, the Park's. gardeners make a ritual presentation of a selection of each fruit that grows in the park to the President of the le Senat. Le Senat, France's Senate, is located in the Park. It's fun to watch the locals play pétanque «boule».
On the Right Bank is Parc de Monceau, 17e. Métro: Monceau. A small, lovely park in a part of Paris that you might not otherwise visit. This is "our" park ... a great place for a brisk morning or evening walk. It is a parc du folie ("fantasy park"). It's fun to explore small pyramids, dramatic sculptures of poets, authors, and composers, and a Roman colonnade.
Parc Andre Citroën, 15e. Metro: Javel. Built on the site of the old Citroën automobile factory on the banks of the Seine, the park is a "water works." It has two large, modern Orangeries, (for storing orange trees in the winter), and is replete with lots of water falls and water courses. Fun for strolling and viewing the "color" gardens.
Part of the Bois de Boulogne on the western boundary of Paris, Parc de Bagatelle has a lovely series of formal gardens, a château and trianon, plus much more. In March/April, see the fields of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinth. If its is early summer, be sure to see the iris, rose and peony gardens. Take the Number 43 bus to Place de Bagatelle which is the end of the line. (Bus maps usually are next to Métro maps.) From the bus stop, walk straight ahead for about ¼ mile with the large complex of playing fields on your right. The entrance to the Bagatelle gardens is on the left, about 500 yards from the main thoroughfare that you must cross.
Near the Église du Dôme ("Napoleon's Tomb") in the 7e Arrondisement is the Paris
headquarters of UNESCO. Métro: Varenne or École Militaire. (The tomb is well worth
a visit. Be sure to go into the rotunda where Napoleon's tomb is located.) Walk along
the Avenue de Tourville behind Napoleon's tomb. With Napoleon's Tomb at your back,
UNESCO is on your right at Place de Fontenoy. There is a mural by Picasso, and several
large sculptures by such artists as Alexander Calder and Henry Moore. Be sure to
see the Garden of Peace on the grounds of UNESCO. It was created by Isamu Noguchi,
an American-
L’Espace Albert Kahn is the legacy of philanthropist, Albert Kahn. The park is located
in Boulogne-
Albert Kahn was convinced that a knowledge of foreign societies encourages respect and peaceful relations among peoples. From 1898 onwards, armed with the necessary financial resources, he set up the series of grants that he called Autour du Monde – "Around the World" – and founded the Chair of Human Geography at the Collège de France, plus the first centre for preventive medicine, a biology laboratory and two forums for discussion and research : the Société Autour du Monde, and the National Committee for Social and Political Studies.
In addition, realising that his era was to witness great changes, he began to build up an iconographic memory of societies, environments and lifestyles – many of them traditional – around the world. From 1909 to 1931, he commissioned photographers and film cameramen to record life in over 50 countries. The images were held in the Archive of the Planet, a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true colour photography, of which the museum now has the largest collection in the world.
Follow this link to a complete listing of Paris parks: Paris Parks
