Today we went to the Luxembourg Gardens. We had already been last week at the MICEFA picnic, but I hadn’t realized the scale of the park until today. There are tennis courts, restaurants, bathrooms, an apiary, an orangery turned into a museum, a small exhibit space, a garden where new fruit strains are experimented on, seats by the fountains, seats in quieter areas, nice patches of grass to picnic on, a courtyard full of elderly people playing pétanque, and a playground full of children running around. I even saw a line of kids riding ponies! There was truly something for everyone to enjoy.

Something about all the activities for kids was extra delightful in how long they’d been around. Miniature boats have been rented for kids to sail in the fountain since the 1850s, the same carousel has been in use since the 1870s, and a theater from the 1930s still has a daily marionette show. A small fee is charged for all of these, as well as to enter the fenced in playground, but considering the park is free it felt reasonable. I’ve been charged more to visit National Parks or gardens at home.

Even the amount of chairs was mind-boggling to me. In the English garden section chairs were spread out along all the paths, and people were sitting and chatting, reading, or sleeping. It was great to head back into the gardens after visiting the Pantheon to wander around, talk, and enjoy the view.

In my experience with parks in the US, they tend to mostly be trail parks. You might find the occasional little green with a playground and some picnic tables, but it’s mostly hiking trails. This fits with how America likes to lean into the idea of conservation and preserving nature like with the National Parks, as opposed to the clearly manicured trees and lawns found in France. As for dedicated gardens in the US, my only real encounter would be the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. I admittedly have a special place in my heart for Lewis Ginter, with its gorgeous conservatory and yearly holiday light display, but there’s never really much too much to do. You can wander around, see if they have a temporary art exhibit, and go up into a large treehouse, but they rarely have anything more. What they do have tends to be temporary and requires even more money than the original entrance fee. There are no boats sailing in the pond, no games being played in an open field. It’s not what the space was meant for, but it still feels like opportunities are being lost.

My experience at the gardens at Versailles was also completely different. Versailles had incredible sculptures, fountains, and landscaping, but there was nothing comfortable about it. It could’ve been that I was exhausted after the earlier crowds inside the palace or that I could feel blisters starting to form on my feet, but it felt like there was never enough seating or spaces to sit and just enjoy the garden. The only fountain I even remember having seating near it was Les Belles Dances, which was added in 2015. It was meant to be beautiful, not welcoming.

Wallace Fountains