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Parks are the beauty spots of our cities. Urban sanctuaries for nature, people, and culture.
Explore Paris’s most beautiful parks, the Tuileries and Jardin du Luxembourg, through seasons, history, culture, and local life.
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Key Takeaways
- Parisian parks are essential urban green spaces that provide nature, culture, and relaxation.
- The Tuileries Garden is a historic masterpiece of French garden design, continually preserved and adapted.
- Jardin du Luxembourg is a vibrant social space blending garden styles and hosting community activities like pétanque.
- Biodiversity and cultural heritage are key focuses in maintaining and renewing these parks.
- Parks serve as peaceful retreats that help Parisians manage the stresses of city life.
What the video covers
- The video explores two iconic Parisian parks: the Tuileries Garden and the Jardin du Luxembourg.
- It highlights the parks as urban sanctuaries offering nature, culture, and relaxation amidst the city.
- The Tuileries Garden is showcased as a classical French garden designed by André Le Nôtre with historical and cultural significance.
- Isabel Gley, the Louvre’s landscape architect, discusses preserving and renewing the Tuileries to enhance biodiversity and beauty.
- The Jardin du Luxembourg blends English and French garden styles and serves as a social hub for locals, including pétanque players.
- The video features personal stories from park visitors and players, emphasizing the parks’ role in stress relief and community bonding.
- Art and sculptures, such as works by Giuseppe Penone, are integrated into the park landscapes.
- The video covers seasonal changes in the parks, highlighting autumn colors and winter blossoms.
- It also touches on apiculture and the role of bees in the urban ecosystem within the parks.
- The parks are portrayed as symbols of French cultural heritage and public spaces vital for city life.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Paris’s Beautiful Parks
- 02:03Morning Serenity in the Tuileries Garden
- 05:18French Garden Design and History
- 06:52Preserving and Renewing the Tuileries
- 08:05Art and Symbolism in the Tuileries
- 09:59Autumn Colors in Jardin du Luxembourg
- 11:12Pétanque Culture in the Luxembourg Gardens
- 13:47Community and Relaxation in the Parks
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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We explore five of the most beautiful city parks in Europe, in all four seasons.
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Today, the Tuileries and the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. We meet the Louvre's landscape architect, visit one of the world's largest orchid collections, and get the buzz from Parisian beekeepers.
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Early morning in Paris. The 1st arrondissement is one of the oldest districts of the French capital.
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Like a green island in the grey sea of houses lies the Jardin de Tuileries, one of the great urban parks of Paris.
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Located near the Louvre and the Seine, it's a classical example of French garden art.
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With statues, geometric shapes, and a symmetrical layout. Once the park's gates open in the morning, joggers are the first to visit.
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Like Rebecca McLeod, who enjoys the serenity of the park at this time of day.
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I'm 26 years old and I work in film production. It's a stressful job. The Tuileries allow me to do a bit of sport, walk, or meet up with friends at the fountain.
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Parks are places that are really essential for a city. For Parisians, the Tuileries Garden is like a green oasis right in the center of their densely built-up city.
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Especially in the morning, when there are no tourists. I grew up in the suburbs of Paris, in a detached house next to a forest.
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When I moved to the city, I sometimes felt cramped. But I have this park here, the open space.
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I can see the sky, the trees, the greenery all around, the fountains. All this is extremely important.
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I need this. Living in Paris is stressful. Life in Paris is stressful. That's why the parks are so important.
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The streets are narrow, but here you can be outdoors and breathe fresh air. I think that's incredibly important for calming down a bit.
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But the peace and tranquility are short-lived. The Tuileries garden quickly fills with people on this beautiful summer's day.
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André Le Nôtre was the landscape architect of Louis XIV. He was the inventor of the Baroque garden architecture that spread from France throughout Europe.
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The artificial landscapes he designed 350 years ago are still popular today. Even the city's birds are happy to find a little sanctuary here.
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Summer is a bit rainy this year. But the dense foliage of the chestnut trees provides cover.
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Here, Isabel Gley... Wait until the shower is over. She works mostly outdoors, so she is used to sudden weather changes.
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I love the different landscapes in this garden. Some areas are heavily forested with an almost intimate atmosphere.
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Others have much more of the rigour typical of French gardens. And the park has lots of stories to tell.
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The Tuileries belong to the Louvre and Isabel is the museum's landscape architect. Like a painter, she works with colours and textures, but she also has to preserve the history and continually renew the park.
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Based on old designs, she keeps reinventing the Tuileries. For the Parisians, this is a great park.
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It offers the best views in Paris. From the Louvre, you can see all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.
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The size of the park makes it very special. It's also a piece of nature, right here in the heart of Paris.
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Today, the gardeners replant some of the flower beds according to her plans. Isabel's plan is to fill the park with flowers again, just like it was nearly 500 years ago.
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She experiments with various plant species to achieve a higher level of biodiversity. The aim of my work is to make this garden the most beautiful in the world.
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I want the Tuileries and the Louvre to stand out as symbols of our national cultural heritage.
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So I have a lot to do. Planting, organising, and discussing our projects with the gardeners.
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But I also look after our publications, do research, and talk about culture. Because in order to stand out, we have to open up to the public.
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The large open spaces and broad vistas were designed to give the French kings a sweeping view over their empire.
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Today, all Parisians can enjoy this luxury. This is one of the few places in Paris where you can see the sky and the horizon.
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A real treat in such a densely built-up city. Even the seemingly untouched is carefully designed.
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In this enchanted overgrown spot, the picturesque fallen tree turns out to be a bronze sculpture.
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A work by the Italian artist Giuseppe Penone. Like many parks, the Tuileries garden has been shaped by the history of the city that surrounds it.
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This urban space is a reflection of the finest French ideals. Liberty, equality, fraternity. This is particularly noticeable on a pleasant summer evening like this.
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Only a stone's throw away from the Tuileries garden, on the other side of the Seine, is another beauty spot.
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The Jardin du Luxembourg. It belongs to the palace of the same name, which houses the Senate, the upper house of the French Parliament.
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The Jardin du Luxembourg combines English and French garden styles. Perhaps it's this mixture of natural landscapes and more formal elements that makes it so attractive.
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Living next to the park is certainly not cheap. North-east of the Jardin du Luxembourg lies the Quartier Latin, an area favoured by academics, scholars, and philosophers.
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When the sun is out, the park becomes their second home. Autumn in Paris, the most colourful season in the city's parks.
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The summer heat abates... And the trees in the Jardin du Luxembourg change from green to a kaleidoscope of colours.
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The chairs in the Loukoum, as the park is affectionately known, can be used free of charge.
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They can be arranged every which way and have become cult objects, which are sold for large amounts of money.
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In the southwestern corner of the park is the boule-o-drome. Here, Parisians gather to play pétanque, a variant of boule.
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Thierry Lesage and Michel Cornet de Saint-Cyr are among the top players. I used to come here with the kids because they wanted to ride the ponies, go to the playground, or ride the carousel.
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Now some years later, I come here myself to play pétanque. So we've come full circle.
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Here at the Rue Guinemere are the playing fields of the French Pétanque Association. They even have a cabinet where members can keep their equipment.
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Thierry is their club president. It's a passion I've inherited from my father. He was the chairman of the pétanque club.
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I started when I was 16. After school, I would play instead of doing my homework.
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On weekends, I would play pétanque. Thanks to a lot of training, I was able to participate in tournaments.
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I started with the small ones, then they became bigger and bigger. I think that only when you meet the great champions can you make real progress.
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It takes at least two to play pétanque. The players stand in a circle and throw heavy metal balls at a target ball called cochonnet or piglet.
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The aim is to get the ball as close to the piglet as possible. You really do have to concentrate.
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Especially when a game is on a knife's edge, it's important not to lose your nerve.
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Therefore, the great players are also mentally strong. They are able to manage their stress levels and don't start trembling at the crucial moment.
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The pétanque players in the Jardin du Luxembourg are a close-knit community. Many of them have been coming here for years.
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However, there's still room in the group for newbies. Michelle, for example, had been playing golf for many years before she took up pétanque.
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She soon got the hang of it. I'm a fighter. I love to win. In my first year, I won two French championships.
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Everybody was surprised. But hey, sometimes you just get lucky in life. I came in at the right time, in the right year.
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"'Boule players are both the most peaceful and the most fanatical people in the world,' wrote Honoré de Balzac." When you come to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the afternoon, it's very peaceful.
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We play, we laugh, and we have fun. After all the stress of everyday life in Paris, it's just nice to meet up here and play pétanque.
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And even if you don't play, you can just sit down, watch a game, and participate without playing yourself.
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That's really nice.
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People listen to music at the bandstand near the main entrance on Boulevard Saint-Michel, stroll along the chestnut-lined alleys, or stop for a chat at one of the many crepe stands.
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But even the most beautiful afternoons come to an end, and it's time to leave the park.
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An hour before sunset, the park's guards close the iron gates. Then night sets in on the Rue Gounemere.
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Early in the morning, the Jardin du Luxembourg is a magical place, quiet and peaceful.
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The Senate building, the Orangerie and the park's Baroque features are bathed in the golden light of the rising sun.
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Only some gardeners and a few early risers mill around the park. In a few moments, the gates will open.
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On the southern edge of the park, at the Rue Auguste Comte, is an area close to the public.
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The orchards of the Jardin de Luxembourg. Here, centuries-old apple and pear varieties are planted, grown and cultivated.
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Franc de la Lex reigns over 1,000 fruit trees. Tightly packed, they stand on this small plot of land.
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Many of the traditional varieties would have disappeared long ago if it weren't for people like Frang, who dedicate themselves to preserving them for posterity.
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It's important to preserve the biological heritage and variety. It's about biodiversity, and it's also important for research.
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Scientists can use these old varieties to create new ones. Paper bags and netting protect the valuable harvest from hungry birds.
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We have old varieties like Blanc d'Espagne, a 17th century variety, or Citron d'Hiver. It's called like that because it looks like a lemon.
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It's also very old. And then there are other varieties which are smaller. This is just a sample of the diversity that we had in previous centuries.
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you Of course you have to love nature. It has its own rhythm that's defined by the seasons.
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It's definitely not the same as the rhythm of a computer program. No, you follow the rhythm of nature and work with it.
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It moves slowly but steadily. Come rain or shine, Franck cares for the Nile trees with their strange names and odd shapes.
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It's harvest time, and he's got his hands full. The rare fruits will later be displayed at garden shows, much to the delight of enthusiasts.
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But why are the fruit trees shaped so oddly? Frong has the explanation. The shape allows for a maximum of solar irradiation.
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The knowledge of how to shape the trees has been accumulated over the centuries. But after the Second World War, the focus has only been on producing larger quantities.
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Joggers flock to the park to use the last rays of the autumn sun for a bit of outdoor activity.
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The gardeners of the Jardin du Luxembourg also use the sunny day to get important work done.
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The park's palms need to go back to the ground. The greenhouse before the first frost.
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Their winter home is the old orangery. The warm days are coming to an end.
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But even in winter, the Parisians love coming to the park. Among the hardiest are the chess players, who are almost part of the park's inventory.
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They know that winter too has its sunny days. Winter is a good time to take a closer look at the park's main attraction, the Palais du Luxembourg.
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In dizzying heights high above the park, L'Horreur de Rieux leads us to a spectacular vantage point.
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Not many people are allowed to come here. The Jardin du Luxembourg is different from other parks simply because it's the most beautiful, if you ask me.
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The whole history of France is reflected in the Jardin du Luxembourg. Nobody knows the palace as well as he does.
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The spectacular display of grandeur and power in the great conference hall goes back to Napoleon III.
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He wanted everybody to know that he was the most powerful man in the country.
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The Palais de Luxembourg is really a unique place, a compendium of French history, the monarchy, the two French empires and the five republics.
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They all pass through the Palais de Luxembourg. Each era left behind a multitude of treasures and curiosities, like the gilded throne of Napoleon Bonaparte and the souvenirs from his Egyptian campaign.
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Here we see the front of an Egyptian statue. However, if we look at it from the side, we discover that the artist has incorporated a small sphinx.
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You only see it when you know. Laurent Delriot's job is to look after the cultural heritage of the palace.
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He knows all its little secrets, like the scorpion hidden in the fake marble of one of the columns, a little private joke by the painter, or the swallow on the frieze of one of the corridors.
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Laurent's main challenge is to preserve an historic monument that houses a 21st century parliament.
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This is not always easy because conservation rules often clash with modern requirements. But he enjoys his task.
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It's a wonderful place. I'm always enchanted when I enter the conference hall or the Senate chamber, and I like to solve all the problems that may occur in the park and the palace.
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At the heart of the Palais du Luxembourg is the Senate chamber. Here, 348 senators, elected for six years, vote on new laws.
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In terms of the architecture, this place is a symbol of France's stability across various governments.
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In this chamber, paintings and sculptures show seven sovereigns, for example, four emperors, Napoleon, and a symbolic representation of the Republic.
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On 13 of the seats you can find medals of famous people, like Victor Hugo and François Mitterrand.
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La Ronde de l'Oise shows us the 19th century chapel. For years it was used as an office, with the ornaments completely hidden behind plaster walls.
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Now it's gradually being restored to its original splendour. The renovations here are exciting, but also complicated.
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We discovered cracks in the walls and the murals. We checked whether they are stable or moving.
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After a few months, we knew that they were stable and we could continue the restoration work.
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But we will not return everything to its original state. The font, the altar, the organ, these are religious objects that will not be reinstalled because, above all, we're in a secular place where people work for the Senate of the Republic.
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The Parisians are strongly attached to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I'll tell you one anecdote that impressed me.
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One day I moved a statue. It was November, 8 in the morning. It was raining.
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A local resident came to me in a bathrobe and said, what are you doing with my statue?
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This strong attachment is characteristic for this park. Most of the visitors who come here in winter live in the immediate vicinity, the 6th arrondissement.
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The Jardin du Luxembourg was once a royal park. More than 400 years ago, Catherine de' Medici, the Italian wife of Henry II, gave orders to lay out a palace garden.
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The Medici fountain reminds the park's visitors that it was this lady from Florence who helped create this urban oasis.
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February may be cold and wet, but some flowers are in full bloom, at least in this small corner of the park, which is close to the public.
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For me, Jardin du Luxembourg is a wonderful place. Not because I work here, but because it has so many different landscapes and interesting nooks and crannies.
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It's peaceful. Despite the passage of time, it has always stayed true to itself. It doesn't change.
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These greenhouses hold a special treasure. The Jardin du Luxembourg's world-famous orchid collection. Baptiste Etienne looks after these extraordinary plants.
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These plants are truly amazing. It was by pure chance that I came here to work with the orchids.
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Originally, I trained to be a landscape gardener. Then I got the opportunity to explore this universe.
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here, because it really is a separate universe. You can't go to school to learn how to cultivate orchids.
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I learned everything from my experienced colleagues who passed on their knowledge. There are so many techniques that one has to learn and acquire.
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Baptiste's task is not only to water and weed the orchids, he is also hybridizing the plants to create new varieties.
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Many of the orchids in this greenhouse are threatened by extinction in their natural habitat.
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Here, they are preserved. These plants have conquered the earth. You can find them everywhere, except for the north and south poles and some deserts.
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They're a little bit like us. They can adapt to any environment. Therefore, each orchid variety needs different levels of temperature and humidity.
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The greenhouses simulate seven different climate zones. Since the 1960s, the orchid department has been running its own laboratory.
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Here, new plants are cultivated under sterile conditions. The aim is not to contaminate the glass container.
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There are sugar and other nutrients inside. And if there was any pollution by fungi, there would be a risk of mold or contamination.
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So, we try to work in a completely sterile environment to avoid these problems. After that, the glass containers are placed in temperature-controlled rooms.
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We provide about 12 hours of light per day in order to cultivate the plants.
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Some of the orchids in this greenhouse are more than a hundred years old. Baptiste and his colleagues want to preserve them for future generations.
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While the orchids blossom in the greenhouses, the wintry park is in hibernation. The trees appear as rigid and lifeless as the park's statues.
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Some of them are world famous, like the Statue of Liberty by Frédérique Auguste Bartholdi.
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Since her big sister was erected in New York in 1886, many reproductions have been put up all over the world.
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Besides statues of neoclassical heroes, effigies of well-known personalities adorn the park. Like that of Frédéric Chopin, the Polish-French composer.
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Slowly but surely, the temperatures rise and the days get longer. Winter comes to an end and spring arrives.
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As the sun rises in the sky... The Jardin du Luxembourg springs back to life.
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On a sunny Sunday afternoon like this, the Parisians jostle for the best seats. The crowd is also a representation of the city's eclectic mix of people, a cross-section of French society.
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The budding trees in the Jardin de Luxembourg attract a hard-working crowd that has spent the last few months in hibernation.
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Bees. They find plenty of work in the park now and pollinate the plants with their buzzing assiduity.
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The Pavillon d'Avieu houses the oldest beekeeping school in the country. Marie Legroux has a daytime job as a professor of English literature, but here in the Jardin du Luxembourg, she indulges in her passion.
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Apiculture. Not a risk-free hobby, as she has to wear protective clothing while visiting her protégés.
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Now, in early spring, she checks whether her bees have survived the winter. The main quality of a beekeeper is humility, because nature calls the shots.
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If something goes wrong, it's the beekeeper's fault. wrong, then it's usually the beekeeper's fault, most of the time.
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Before opening the hives, she burns some herbs. The smoker calms the bees. It makes them crawl down into the hive because it acts as a warning signal for possible intrusion.
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So they get ready to flee through the lower opening. The first check in spring is always a tense moment.
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Because diseases could have killed the colony during the winter months. We hear about bees all the time these days.
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Everybody says how important they are. And it's true. They are key to biodiversity and natural balance.
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They are pollinators. They are almost mythical animals because the hive forms a society. It's a harmonious kind of society that we would like to be ourselves.
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Luckily, this hive is healthy and thriving. Ironically, bees often find better conditions in the city than in the countryside, where pesticides and monocultures threaten their survival.
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The queen is marked with a blue dot. She is also alive and well. In the afternoon, Marie is joined by her students, townies who want to become beekeepers.
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You at number 13, do you have your smoker? When you open a hive after the winter, you want to know if the colony is healthy, if the bees are doing well.
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It's a great moment of almost meditative concentration. Then everybody smiles. Everyone here at the apiary is proud to work in such a historic place.
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It's nice to be right in the middle of the Jardin du Luxembourg in every season and do beekeeping.
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It's a great privilege. The courses are fully booked for up to two years in advance.
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We are back in the Tuileries, where nature awakens from its winter sleep. Even on a grey day like this, the tree blossoms shine in vibrant purple.
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The gardeners have done a great job. And the Parisians return to the park after a long winter break.
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The name Tuileries is derived from the brick kilns that stood here before. The gritty, dusty walkways are reminders of the park's past.
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On one of the bridges over the Seine that leads to the Tuileries, we meet Bénédicte Loyen with her camera.
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She is looking for motifs that show life in all its mundane beauty. Benedict has appeared as an actress in films by Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Romare.
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Now she has turned to photography under the pseudonym Ben Loy. I like to have something human, live and real in my pictures.
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Yes, I like to photograph people and nature. Actually, everything that moves and lives. Thank you.
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Apart from people, I photograph many other things. I take pictures of trees, light reflections, pigeons, clouds, all sorts of things.
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This isn't a wild park. Everything is square. There are beautiful, strict lines. There are sculptures and places to relax.
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There's the sky, finally, in such a densely built-up city. This is a beautiful space where we can breathe a little.
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In times of digital photography, Ben Loy resorts to the magic of analogue black and white film because she wants to control the whole process, from loading the film to developing the prints.
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Ben Loy takes us to her studio. A few metro stops away from the Tuileries.
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I put a lot of effort into making the prints. I learned a lot by doing them.
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When I develop the images, I'm always a bit hesitant when I see the result.
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I think that the work in the laboratory improves my images a lot. The development process is time-consuming, cumbersome and expensive.
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Yet Ben Loy has decided to work with film and paper and spends hours waiting in the darkness of the laboratory.
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Black and white is easier. Only having black, white and grey makes it easier to express things.
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We are bombarded with images and sounds. Our world is polluted by this abundance. But then showing somebody something as simple as a black and white photograph can perhaps trigger a stronger feeling in them.
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I believe that this focus transports what I want to express and communicate. And this is where our journey through the two famous parks in the heart of Paris comes to an end.
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A splendid city. Made even more splendid by its two beauty spots, the Tuileries and the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Topics:Paris parksTuileries GardenJardin du LuxembourgFrench gardensurban naturelandscape architectureAndré Le Nôtrepétanquebiodiversitycultural heritage
