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"There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even - the French air clears up the brain and does good - a world of good." Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90), Dutch painter. |
Most large Parisian parks are not green like, for instance, London's parks. Rather, they're laid out in a formal manner with gravel pathways and avenues of chestnuts and other trees, and decorated with monumental statues and fountains.
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Young Woman In Garden by Mary Cassatt |
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Service des Visites
3, avenue de la Porte d'Auteuil - 75016 Paris
Tel: 01-40-71-75-23 ; Fax: 01-40-71-93-56
Tours in gardens and cemeteries run by the Mairie de Paris, with specialized guides for groups and individuals (foreign languages on request). Special interest tours. Exhibitions. Programs on request. (Available also at the Paris Tourist Office.)
"The Jardin d'Acclimatation is a park just for kids. At its longest it is just under 700 metres long, and at its widest it is about 250 metres across; so it is not small. It is located at the top end of the Bois de Boulogne, next to Neuilly, but its address is in Paris. The history of the Jardin d'Acclimatation is harder to come by.
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La Quintinie, gardener at Versailles for King Louis XIV |
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However, it is a
very real place. Just inside the Sablons entry there is an open
pavilion full of funny mirrors and opposite it there is a theatre.
Next comes an enchanted river, hidden within its own park. You can
take boat rides past water wheels; but I think the boats are pulled
along by an underwater cable...." [and lots more in the article in
Metropole
Paris]
Extract from: http://www.wfi.fr/metropole/1998/331/331clima.html
Entrance to the garden is 12 francs for adults and six for children. Kids under three, no charge. Other attractions in the park. Open all year. Métro: Sablons in Neuilly, Bois de Boulogne, Paris 16th. There is also a little train that runs to the park from Porte Maillot, from 11:00 to 18:00; 24 francs round trip. Phone: 01-40-67-90-82.
Spread across 250 acres, the Gardens of Versailles were laid out by the great landscape artist, André Le Nôtre, whose work here represents classical French landscaping at its most formal and sophisticated.
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"Instructions pour les jardins fruitiers et potager" (Versailles) |
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At the peak of their glory, 1400 water fountains played. The fountains of Apollo, Neptune, and Latona -- the latter with its statues of people being turned into frogs -- are exceptional. The park is at its golden-leafed best in autumn, but is also enticing in summer -- especially on Sundays when the fountains are in full flow. They become a spectacle of rare grandeur during the Fêtes de Nuit, light-and-fireworks shows in July and September.
An extensive
tree-replacement scheme was launched in 1998 to recapture the full
impact of Le Nôtre's artful vistas. The distances are vast --
the Trianons themselves are more than a mile from the château
-- so you might like to rent a bike from the Grille de la Reine on
boulevard de la Reine (near the Trianon Palace hotel).
SEE ALSO: News article
" Versailles Opens Renovated Garden".
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Woman & Child Driving by Mary Cassatt BUY THIS PRINT |
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His earliest royal post was first gardener to King Louis XIII at the Tuileries in Paris, where he succeeded (1637) his father. As buildings inspector for the royal works (from 1657), he was responsible for all the chief royal gardens, especially those at Saint Germain, Fontainebleau, and Clagny, and for the parks of the chief ministers of King Louis XIV.
Le Nôtre's best known work is the immense park of the Palace of Versailles (1661-90), commissioned by Louis XIV and imitated throughout Europe. The principles of the jardin français , however, can be seen more clearly at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, where Le Nôtre worked (1656-61) in collaboration with the architect Louis Le Vau and the designer Charles Le Brun. Whereas the design of the typical Renaissance garden consisted of individual geometric units laid side by side, with a strong sense of compartmentalization, the gardens designed by Le Nôtre were unified by a dominant central axis that firmly controlled the movement of the spectator through the various lawns, gardens, and pools. He also made use of the lay of the land for optical effects, closing the vista by funneling the lines of perspective. He also channeled water from terrace to terrace as it passed through the various cascades and fountains. His spacious, elegantly orchestrated works epitomized the opulent era of Louis XIV and played a key role in the development of landscape architecture.
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"The heart of Paris is like nothing so much as the unending interior of a house. Buildings become furniture, courtyards become carpets and arrases, the streets are like galleries, the boulevards conservatories. It is a house, one or two centuries old, rich, bourgeois, distinguished. The only way of going out, or shutting the door behind you, is to leave the centre." John Berger (b. 1926), British author, critic. |
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