Luxembourg Gardens in Paris

Luxembourg Gardens

One day during our Paris visit, we stopped for baguettes and sandwiches and had a picnic lunch at the Gazebo in the Luxembourg Gardens. It was relaxing to watch the kids sailing their boats on the water and see the diverse crowd of people going by.

The Jardin du Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Gardens, is the second largest public park in Parislocated in the 6th arrondisement of Paris.  The park is the garden of the French Senate, which is itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace. 

The garden is largely devoted to a green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and centered on a large octagonal basin of water, with a central jet of water; in it children sail model boats.

The garden is famed for its calm atmosphere.

We visited on a warm day, the sun was shining, flowers blooming, autumn leaves beginning to fall from the trees, children sailing their little boats on the pond with the palace in the background, what more is there to say?

The garden contains just over a hundred statues, monuments, and fountains, scattered throughout the grounds. Surrounding the central green space are about twenty figures of historical French queens and female saints commissioned by Louis-Philippe in 1848.