Thursday: June 17
Luxembourg Palace & Garden / Jardin des Plantes / Promenade Plantee
A visit to Paris isn't complete without a visit to the
Luxembourg Gardens unless you suffer from hay fever, hate flowers, children and
don't have a romantic cell in your body.
At the Luxembourg Gardens you can take a leisurely
stroll and through an orchard of apple and pear trees, relax, read, think, be
people watched, smell the roses or tulips or whatever or do nothing. The
Luxembourg Gardens are formal gardens consisting of gravel and lawn populated by
statues of saints and French royalty. The Gardens are well known for their
stella chill out quality.
The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of
seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. It is situated on
the left bank of the river Seine and covers 28 hectares (280,000 m²). The
grounds of the Jardin des Plantes includes four galleries of the Muséum: the
Grande Galerie de l'Évolution, the Mineralogy Museum, the Paleontology Museum
and the Entomology Museum. In addition to the gardens there is also a small zoo,
founded in 1795 by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre from animals of the royal menagerie
at Versailles.
On June 13, I showed you the Viaduct des Arts, a disused railraw viaduct that has been restored and the arches converted into shops. A unique and interesting place to visit. Today I will take you to the top of the viaduct, to the Prominade Plantee. They removed the tracks and over a multiyear period, convertted the top into a beautiful park. You walk along among all the plants and trees, above the bustling traffic and crowds below. It's quite marvelous...sit on a bench, read your book or listen to your iPod....just beautiful. Enjoy....
Luxembourg Palace
The Luxembourg Palace (French: Palais du Luxembourg), north of the Luxembourg
Garden (French: Jardin du Luxembourg), is the seat of the French Senate. The
formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn
populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children
sail model boats. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear
trees and the théâtre des marionnettes (puppet theatre).
The palace was built for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France
and of Gaston, duc d'Orléans, just near the site of an old hôtel particulier
owned by François-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Piney-Luxembourg, hence its name
(now called Petit Luxembourg, home of the president of French Senate). Marie de
Médicis desired to make a building similar to her native Florence's Palazzo
Pitti, and to this effect had the main architect Salomon de Brosse send
architect Clément Metézeau to Florence to obtain drawings. Marie de Médicis
bought the structure and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned
the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médicis, in 1615. Its
construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing
remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some
architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of
paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her
requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.
A series of twenty-four triumphant canvases were commissioned from Peter Paul
Rubens. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré ("gilded study") was
identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967. To the right of the block of the
Luxembourg, erected at the same time, was the mass of the Palais du
Petit-Luxembourg.
Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors
continued. The apartments to one side were reserved for the Queen and the
matching suite on the other for her son, Louis XIII (floor plan). Construction
was finished in 1631; the Queen Mother was forced from court shortly after,
following the "Day of the Dupes" in November 1631. Louis XIII commissioned
further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de
Champaigne.
In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston
d'Orléans. Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, Marguerite de
Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de
Montpensier, La Grande Mademoiselle. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the
Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, duchesse
de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, king Louis XIV, in 1694.
In 1750, the palace became a museum—the forerunner of the Louvre—, and was open
two days a week until 1779. In 1778, the palace was given to the comte de
Provence by his brother Louis XVI. During the French Revolution, it was briefly
a prison, then the seat of the French Directory and later the first residence of
Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul of the French Republic. It has continued its
senatorial role, with brief interruptions, ever since.
In the nineteenth century, the palace was extensively remodeled, with a new
garden façade by Alphonse de Gisors (1836–1841), and a cycle of paintings
(1845–1847) by Eugène Delacroix that was added to the library.
During the German occupation of Paris (1940–1944), Hermann Göring took over the
palace as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a
sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital.
His subordinate, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, was also given an
apartment in the Luxembourg palace, and spent most of the war enjoying the
luxurious surroundings. "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public
display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his
match in corpulence," wrote armaments minister Albert Speer after a visit to
Sperrle in Paris.
The palace was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city
in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of Commanding General Dietrich von
Choltitz to surrender the city rather than fight, the palace was only minimally
damaged.
From 29 July to 15 October 1946, the Luxembourg Palace was the site of the talks
of Paris Peace Conference.
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Click here to see other pictures..
Jardin des Plantes
The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of
seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. It is situated on
the left bank of the river Seine and covers 28 hectares (280,000 m²).
The grounds of the Jardin des Plantes includes four galleries of the Muséum: the
Grande Galerie de l'Évolution, the Mineralogy Museum, the Paleontology Museum
and the Entomology Museum. In addition to the gardens there is also a small zoo,
founded in 1795 by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre from animals of the royal menagerie
at Versailles.
The Jardin des Plantes maintains a botanical school, which trains botanists,
constructs demonstration gardens, and exchanges seeds to maintain biotic
diversity. About 4500 plants are arranged by family on a one hectare (10,000 m²)
plot.
Three hectares are devoted to horticultural displays of decorative plants. An
Alpine garden has 3000 species with world-wide representation. Specialized
buildings, such as a large Art Deco wintergarden, and Mexican and Australian
hothouses display regional plants, not native to France. The Rose Garden,
created in 1990, has hundreds of species of roses and rose trees.
Founded in 1626, the garden was not planted by Guy de La Brosse, Louis XIII's
physician, until 1635 as a medicinal herb garden. It was originally known as the
Jardin du Roi. In 1640 it opened to the public.
After a period of decline, Jean-Baptiste Colbert took administrative control of
the gardens. Dr. Guy-Crescent Fagon was appointed in 1693, and he surrounded
himself with a team of brilliant botanists, including Joseph Pitton de
Tournefort, Antoine de Jussieu, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu and his son Adrien-Henri.
The Comte de Buffon became the curator in 1739 and he expanded the gardens
greatly, adding a maze, the Labyrinth, which remains today. In 1792 the Royal
Menagerie was moved to the gardens from Versailles.
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Promenade plantée
The promenade plantée (="walk with trees") also known as the Coulée verte is a
4.5 km-long (2.8-mile) elevated park.
It is a rail trail, constructed on an abandoned 19th-century railway viaduct,
which connected the Bastille area to the eastern suburbs of Paris, and ceased
operation on December 14, 1969. Conversion to park took place between 1987 and
2000. The parkway runs from the Opéra Bastille (near the junction of Rue de Lyon
and Avenue Daumensil) to the eastern city limits, ending up only a short
distance from the Bois de Vincennes.
The Promenade was designed by Jacques Vergely (landscape architect) and Philippe
Mathieux (architect). Pedestrians have a garden environment for their high-level
walk and cyclists have a route at ground level. Then, 4.5 km from the start, the
routes come together at ground level and proceed to the Bois de Vincennes. The
high-level route has some enclosed sections, as when it passes between modern
buildings, and some open sections with expansive views.
The arcades beneath the viaduct have been transformed into arts and crafts
workshops (such as the Atelier Camille Le Tallec). This section is called the "Viaduc
des Arts".
It was for a long time the only elevated park in the world, but recently the
first phase of the High Line, a similar park on an old railway-viaduct in the
Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, has finished its first phase with projected
completion in 2011. Also there are plans for the Bloomingdale Trail in Chicago
and on old Reading Viaduct elevated rail in the Callowhill section of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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