Thursday 3 September 2009

P is for...

Palais de Luxembourg

on a crisp november afternoon

Okay, so I'm actually going to cheat a little with this post, as I haven't actually set foot inside the Palais de Luxembourg, which is in Paris, at all.  I did spend two lovely afternoons tramping around the gardens, though, so it's just a little cheat, not an o-my-stars-I'm-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket type cheat, so I'm hoping you'll let me off with a warning only!


The Luxembourg Palace was originally built for Marie de Médicis, mother of Louis XIII in the early 1600s and went through several owners, becoming a museum in the mid 1700s.  During the German occupation the palace became the headquarters for the Luffwaffe and it is now the seat of the French Senate.

cherubs and chrysanthemums - typical autumnal garden fare

I was lucky enough to be staying with a grand family who owned a massive apartment not 5 minutes from the gardens, so I took great pleasure in taking the odd hour or two I had off between rehearsals to wander around the very large parterre jardins and snap away at pretty much everything.  The gardens were formal in places, but away from the palace itself, were more extensively gravel walks between very evenly spaced trees, completed with a smattering of statues. 


The latter didn't really bear too close an inspection as I suspect a lot of them were concrete replicas of statues long ground into dust, but surrounded as they were by metal chairs and general detritis left over from the promenade season, I have to admit that I found them rather endearing!

waiting for the bandstand to come to life again...

The gardens also played host to a variety of pursuits: joggers made use of the outer pathways; the occasional roller-blader and skateboarder weaved and whipped around the sauntering tourists; senior citizens from the surrounding area took part in some tai-chi nearer the water garden (While I wandered around, there were 3 rival groups all contending to be... well, how do you determine the winners?  Contending to be the most gawped at?  The group who has the least amount of fallers?) and more than the odd one or two folk on bicycles leading their dogs for an afternoon stroll dash/drag around the park.

For an inner city garden, it was surprisingly peaceful and it was good to see that there were locals and not just tourists taking advantage of the tranquility. 

the long autumn rays of the setting sun

I must admit that my afternoons in the gardens were enjoyed in my favourite kind of weather - a crisp and cold  sunshiny Autumnal day, with the sun streaming through the trees making long shadows on the fallen leaves. My days around the Luxembourg were deliciously perfect.

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Mair Bloag Weejits

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