Hi friends, welcome back to my Paris and London Anniversary series 🙂 Jon and I were supposed to have our anniversary pictures this morning, but due to inclement weather, we postponed them until the following morning. This was the only day of slightly bad weather the whole trip so we got very lucky! We took it as a sign to sleep in a little before starting off our fifth day in Paris. We put on our rain jackets, grabbed coffee, and then walked to the Luxembourg Gardens not far from where we were staying.
The Luxembourg Gardens (Jardin du Luxembourg) spans sixty acres and is filled with fountains, over 100 statues, picnic tables, tennis courts, playgrounds, beehives, and well-manicured trees and flowerbeds. This park is a popular spot for chess players to meet up, but due to the rain we didn’t venture to the northwest side of the park.
The Luxembourg Palace and Garden were built in 1615 by King Henry IV’s widow Marie de’ Medici to resemble her childhood home back in Italy. This was her escape from life at the Louvre Palace, but unfortunately her son Louis XIII exiled her to Germany so she didn’t get to enjoy it for very long.
Nowadays Luxembourg Palace is the meeting spot of the French Senate and guarded by security.
This pond is usually filled with toy sailboats and Parisians relaxing in the green chairs, but not on a rainy Monday morning.
The Marie de Medici Fountain was originally in a different location and moved here brick by brick in the mid-1800s. It was also recently cleaned in the summer of 2021, perfect timing for our visit.
It started downpouring while we were here so we huddled under a tree to let the rain slow down. Despite the rain, the Luxembourg Gardens still looked beautiful!
Eventually Jon and I decided to keep moving and grabbed baguettes for lunch on our way to Eglise St. Eustache. This massive Gothic looking church was built in 1532 and restored in 1840. It is free to enter and worth a quick walk around to admire the Renaissance interior. The organ is one of the largest pipe organs in France and you can listen to free organ recitals on Sundays at 5:30 pm. The Eglise St. Eustache also hosts symphonies, choirs, and festivals throughout the year for performances.
Afterwards, Jon and I walked to the Orangerie Museum in the Tuileries Garden. We thought we could buy tickets at the door, but unfortunately you need an advanced online reservation and can’t book same day tickets. We were a little disappointed to miss Monet’s famous Water Lillies, but we had been so busy and seen a few museums, so it was nice to have a little down time. Next time we go to Paris it will be at the top of our list.
Jon and I headed back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and then called an uber to take us to our new hotel closer to the Eiffel Tower, Hotel La Comtesse. We dreamed of having a view of the Eiffel Tower out of our window and this room delivered! It was the perfect spot to watch the light show each night and felt like something out of a movie scene.
Jon and I grabbed gelato for dinner at Amorino and then headed to go up the Eiffel Tower!
To be continued 🙂
Posts in my Paris and London Anniversary series:
- Day 1 – Saint Chapelle, the Concierge, and Notre Dame
- Day 2 – Palace of Versailles
- Day 2 – Versailles Garden
- Day 2 – Touring the Versailles Summer Homes
- Day 3 – Louvre Museum
- Day 3 – Champs Elysees & Arc de Triomphe
- Day 4 – Montmartre & Sacre Coeur
- Day 4 – Musee d’Orsay & Crepes
Some great photos as usual!! 🙂
Thank you!! 🙂
You are very welcome! 🙂
What a pity for the Luxembourg, it is indeed a garden full of little surprises. I’ve just started a series on the garden this week. The location of the room facing the Eiffel Tower is ideal, I see where it is next to the Ecole Militaire, the perfect spot.
It is such a beautiful garden! I’d love a view of the Eiffel Tower out my window!
Two more beautiful sights in Paris! Even in the rain, the Luxembourg gardens looked amazing, and your photos came out great. European churches will never cease to astound me (Kellye). Maybe I will see them in person one day, along with a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower out of the hotel window. As ever, I am enjoying your trip!
Thank you! The gardens were so beautiful, I can imagine spending even more time exploring them on a nice sunny day! It is amazing how the European churches were built. They are so grand and stunning. I hope you get to Paris soon 🙂
Interesting to have a palace to get away from a palace. Blood is thicker than water but not the thirst for power. Great photos Lyssy!
Thank you! Yes imagine needing a Palace to get away from a Palace… The thirst for power is something that never seems to go away.
A good way to make use of a rainy day! That view from your second hotel room just can not be beat.
It was a great day, despite the weather! The view was so spectacular! It was so hard to leave
Luxembourg Gardens are one of my faves and I love the photo of you two in your raingear.
For Monet, head to 16th https://viewfromtheback.com/2017/12/03/more-postcards-from-paris-ii/
Thank you for sharing! Your post also makes me want to visit Paris again in the fall!
There’s never a bad time to visit Paris
I am more of a raincoat with a hood instead of an umbrella, maybe because it’s so hard to walk down the sidewalk with an umbrella. The garden was so pretty, despite the rain!
Hoods are way better than umbrellas
Too bad about the rain, but you made the best of it. We were at Luxembourg on a Sunday and got top watch all the families out for their Sunday stroll. Before that, we attended service at St. Sulpice (made famous by Dan Brown’s Davinci Code. After service, we lined up at the door for a tour up to the organ loft (Rick Steeves book tip) and spent some time talking to the stone masons restoring the church. Your new hotel with Eiffel view looks fabulous. Good call. Thanks for the memories Lyssy. Really enjoying this series. Allan
Yes we got pretty lucky with only one day of not so great weather! I can only imagine how great the gardens were on a sunny day with everyone out and about. We didn’t see that church, not sure how we missed it! I read the Davinci Code – but I should’ve watched the movie again before our trip. Jon and I have been watching Rick Steves on Youtube to wind down at night, they are a little outdated but so great! That hotel was amazing! I’m so glad you’re enjoying this series 🙂
The Luxembourg Gardens look magnificent, and I love your Eiffel Tower photo at night time, it looks really dazzling with all the lights.
Such a magnificent garden! Thank you, I couldn’t get enough of our view and the light show!
I’ve not visited the Luxembourg Gardens but will add them to my list now that I know more about them. Such a shame it was a rainy day but it can’t be helped. Your views of the Eiffel Tower look very special from the hotel room Lyssy!
You’ll have to visit them on a sunny day next time you’re in Paris! The view from our hotel was so special! Such a dream!
One benefit of bad weather – there are less people in photos haha! That view from your hotel room is also just perfect 🙂
That is true! Reminds me of this past Christmas it poured one night and I got an unobstructed picture of the Rockefeller Tree. The view from the hotel was so perfect, it was such a dream!
The interior of that church is gorgeous. As is everything else in this post. Paris certainly does not disappoint. Lovely views from the hotel room. Never asked if you were a fan of Sex and the City TV show. I remembered that episode when Carrie finally gets to Paris and screams seeing the Eiffel Tower practically next to her balcony.
Paris definitely did not disappoint! We wouldn’t have changed a thing 🙂 I never watched it, I was a little too young for the content, but I did see the first movie. We actually had dinner this weekend at a bar place they featured on the show. That reaction to the Eiffel Tower is very believable!
I don’t need a back garden as grand as the Luxembourg; just one big enough to hold the Maria de Medici fountain. How very elegant. Speaking of elegant, I can’t get enough of your photos of the French “Chateau” style, with the mansard roofs, dormers and chimneys, and stone exteriors. Paris seems to have a lot of that style, at least from centuries past. It’s a shame they don’t allow the public into the Luxembourg Palace (or do they?). I’m sure the interiors are spectacular.
The fountain is very elegant! Would probably up your resale value 🙂 I think they offer very limited tours similar to how the US Capitol buildings are pretty off limits unless you can score a guided tour. I’d love to see the interiors, I didn’t know it was the Senate until we got home. It was relatively heavily guarded.