J - Jardin du Luxembourg

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Heading north again, for moment... Within the city of Paris lies Le Jardin du Luxembourg. It is quite simply immense. You can spend hours in the garden and find something new around each turn in the multitude of paths. I wouldn’t call the paths a maze for the simple reason that the most of them are wide broad avenues. They are mostly shaded and all are different. Here, you’ll find the avenue of Queens and female saints, there, the avenue of statues (there are hundreds of statues throughout the gardens), here, the octagon-shaped pond with fountain, there the Medici Fountain (1630, 1866). And don't forget the bronze Fountain of the Observatory.  If you go, plan to spend some time to get the most from it. I met a man in the gardens, from the States and now lives in France and he comes to the gardens at least once a week just to read and take in the strolling pedestrians, the difference in the garden with each season, and the flowers. Of course the flowers. They are everywhere. You could say France is flower-crazy, and when you see how it enhances urban scenes, you don’t wonder why. I spent hours here and didn’t even make it up to the palace itself! I was too busy trying to see as much as I could of the garden. I won’t repeat what you can find in the links in this post, but I will say, the Jardin du Luxembourg is very worth seeing if you’re ever in Paris…

The Sorbonne in the distance with Pan dancing below

Closer, Pan dances to his own tune...

Le Palais du Luxembourg

From the palace side looking over the gardens. The tower of Montparnasse is in the distance. The only "grate ciel" skyscraper in Paris

With the fountain and lawn in front...

One of the statues on the Avenue of Queens and female saints

Another one...I think there are twelve total along the avenue of queens and saints

The Medici Fountain. Often the rotate artwork IN the fountain. Very unusual.

The Lion statue

The dear statue

One end of another avenue with statues stretching the entire length

“Fountain of the Observatory”, found at the end of one of the broad walks

If you look closely, or click on photo to make it larger, you'll see more statues down the length of the avenue

The man who comes to the gardens to read, relax and enjoy the passers-by...

Medici fountain photo from:

fr.wikipedia.org