370349 5 Location 506714 <p>The Jardin de Tuileries connects the Champs-Elysees, via the Place de Condorde to the Louvre. Sourrounding the park are majestic buildings. The park is a great place to kick up your feet and take in the sights, sounds and smells of Paris. A great place to people watch. Pariseans, Europeans and Americans can all be seen enjoying the park and fountain. </p><p>The same person who designed the gardens at Versailles also designed Jardin de Tuileries . The gardens are a spacious recreation area for locals and tourists alike and they are a great place to spend some time while you're in Paris. There are a number of statues and two large fountains, surrounded by chairs. Covering more than 2,500 acres, the gardens are a favorite place for local artists and art students to paint the landscape. </p><p>The two terraces which form the north and south borders, blossom out into wide sinuous slopes in front of the Place de la Concorde. The northern (Musee du Jeu de Paume) side is dominated by the Terrasse des Feuillants, named after a neighbouring Benedictine convent. The garden's sculptures are extremely varied with contributions from Marly, Van Cleve, Coustou, Le Paultre. </p><p>The best things in life are free, and I love walking through this garden each time I'm in Paris!</p><p>The gardens are really a contradiction -- today a place for children to play, lovers to meet, and yesterday the site of great slaughter, the extension of a royal palace and a royal prison. </p><p>To appreciate the gardens you must sit quietly and see the invisible. ~~~ Imagine a large, cumbersome palace similar to the Louvre which formed the eastern edge of the side of the garden. It was built by Catherine de Medicis, a powerful and supersticious queen. </p><p>Louis XIV resided at the Tuileries Palace, while his chateau, Versailles, was being built. When he left, it was abandoned, used only as a theatre, until the return of the ill-fated royal family - Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, their children and a few servants, who were expelled from Versailles. </p><p>The royal family attempted to escape, disguised as servants, only to be captured in Varennes, on the border of Germany, when a peasant recognised Louis from his resemblance to his coin! They were dragged back to the Tuileries, where they were kept under guard until the most dramatic day of the French revolution - August 10, 1792 when the bells of Paris rang and the people stormed the palace in anger. The palace and once quiet gardens were left strewn with over 1,000 corpses. </p><p>The palace was restored by Napolean III only to be burned in 1871 during a confrontation with another Communard government. </p><p>The accursed palace loomed, charred and in disgrace for 12 years on the site of the present expanded Tuleries gardens. What a great concentration of French history has taken place in what today appears only to be a classical, French garden, with children playing, lovers meeting, and hurried Parisians taking shortcuts to somewhere else .</p><p>There's no shortage of places to take a walk in Paris, but the Jardin des Tuileries is one of the more attractive spots you could choose. Right in the middle of the city next to the Louvre and the river, it's also a good place to sit and relax in warm weather. If you're on your way to or from the Louvre, it's definitely worth dropping in. In particular, if you're heading to or from the Musee D'Orsay, it's a much nicer walk though the park than the two roads either side, and the footbridge on the route is directly accessible from the park. </p> 2006-08-01T15:27:03-07:00 570425350 2006-06-20T17:00:00-07:00 0 -9223372036854775790 139114 1890292 370349 0 181083 0.247078831143975 2006-06-19T17:00:00-07:00 Published 150.0 2006-08-01T15:28:10-07:00 89178 0