Back to the routine! Yesterday we had intermittent showers so I didn't walk and I regretted that at the end of the day so I made sure to get outside by noon today. It is warmer and plants are budding with a few spring bulbs blooming so I decided to deviate from my normal route and hit the Jardin des Tuileries which is a large public garden that sits between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde.
You can see the grey skies but no rain! This is a large fountain at the end of the garden closest to the Place de la Concorde. I did a little reading about this garden. The wife of Henry the II, Catherine de Medicis had the garden designed in the style a Florence Italian garden which was her homeland. Successive monarchs made changes and expanded the garden.
There are lovely statues throughout the garden...and most are of Renaissance themes and styles but there are several modern art sculptures too. This is a Henry Moore bronze piece from 1951, Reclining Figure.
The fallen tree is actually also a bronze sculpture, L'Arbre Des Voyelles by Guiseppe Penone. I have a few of these kinds of sculptures at my home in Alaska and they were made by nature!
This is the end of the garden facing the Louvre.
Here is the end nearest the Louvre looking back at the gardens...I wanted you to get a feel for the number of people walking around the place. The name of the garden came from the original workshops that sat on the site to make roof tiles...called "tuileries."
This side of the garden seemed a couple of days ahead in blooms than the other.
Then I got on with the rest of my walk. The trees are starting to get a green fuzzy look on their branches...and what a perfect place for a statue! This is General Lafayette...remember him from American history class? He was a French aristocrat who served as a general in the Continental Army with George Washington.
Here's the place we should have rented...a houseboat on the Seine right across from the Eiffel Tower.
3 comments:
hmm a houseboat would be interesting but do they rock much when tied up there on the bank? You have such nice places to walk - I bet you get in some long walks and people watching! thanks for the photos, so nice to see it all.
it's lovely seeing pictures of places I've only read about. I read a biography of Marie Antoinette, and more recently, of her daughter Marie Teresa, and they both talk a lot about the gardens at the Tuileries. It's also nice to see that there are flowers blooming somewhere. Everything here is just varying shades of grey. A houseboat would be interesting. But the rogue waves would do nasty things to fingers at the sharp end of a needle. lol
Your walk was lovely. I would love to live on a boat, tho it might be challenge to sew during rough weather. Thanks for sharing with us!
Post a Comment