Paris_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Lonely Planet [70]
The park is a backdrop to the Palais du Luxembourg, built in the 1620s for Marie de Médici, Henri IV’s consort, to assuage her longing for the Pitti Palace in Florence, where she had spent her childhood. Since 1958 the palace has housed the Sénat (Senate, upper house of French parliament; reservations 01 44 54 19 49; www.senat.fr; rue de Vaugirard, 6e; adult/18-25yr €8/6) which can be visited by guided tour at 10.30am one Saturday per month. East of the palace is the Italianate Fontaine des Médici, an ornate fish pond (1630).
Top spot for sun-soaking – there’s always loads of chairs here – is the southern side of the palace’s 19th-century, 57m-long Orangery (1834) where lemon and orange trees, palms, grenadiers and oleanders shelter from the cold. A little further is the Musée du Luxembourg ( 01 42 34 25 95; www.museeduluxembourg.fr; 19 rue de Vaugirard, 6e; up to adult/10-25yr/under10yr €11/9/free; 10.30am-10pm Mon & Fri, 10.30am-7pm Tue-Thu & Sat, to 7pm Sun), housed in two galleries built for the palace to showcase artworks. It hosts very prestigious temporary art exhibitions; admission prices vary. Next door the heavily guarded Hôtel du Petit Luxembourg (rue de Vaugirard, 6e) was the modest 16th-century pad where Marie de Médici lived while Palace du Luxembourg was being built. The president of the Senate has called it home since 1825.
Luxembourg Garden offers all the delights of a Parisian childhood a century ago. At the octagonal Grand Bassin, model sailboats can be rented, and nearby, Shetland ponies take tots for rides. At the pint-sized Théâtre des Marionnettes du Jardin du Luxembourg ( 01 43 26 46 47; ticket €4; 3.15pm Wed, 11am & 3.15pm Sat & Sun, daily during school hols) marionette shows guarantee a giggle, whether you understand French or not. Complete the day with a romp around the kids’ playground (adult/child/under 15 months €2.60/1.60/free; 10am-park close) – the green half is for kids aged seven to 12 years, the blue half for under-sevens – or a summertime waltz on the old-fashioned carousel (merry-go-round).
MUSÉE DE LA MONNAIE DE PARIS Map
01 40 46 55 35; www.monnaiedeparis.fr; 11 quai de Conti, 6e; adult/under 16yr €5/free; 11am-5.30pm Tue-Fri, noon-5.30pm Sat & Sun; Pont Neuf
The Parisian Mint Museum traces the history of French coinage from antiquity to the present and displays presses and other minting equipment. There are some excellent audiovisual and other displays, which help to bring to life this otherwise niche subject.
The museum building, the Hôtel de la Monnaie, became the royal mint during the 18th century and is still used by the Ministry of Finance to produce commemorative medals and coins, as well as official weights and measures. One-hour tours of the ateliers (workshops) leave at 2.15pm on Wednesday and Friday (€3); advance reservations only.
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IMMORTAL REMAINS
Paris loves to immortalise people from its past with statues and monuments and has done so especially since the mid-19th century. Père Lachaise, Montmartre and Montparnasse Cemeteries are bursting with wonderfully evocative likenesses of heroes and villains, poets and philosophers, and revolutionaries and autocrats, and there’s a resident stone or bronze celebrity in even the tiniest park or square. The following is a selection of the larger-than-life characters you might bump into on your way around Paris.
St-Denis, patron saint of France (also known as Dionysius of Paris), introduced Christianity to Paris and was beheaded by the Romans for his pains. You can see him carrying his unfortunate