Lovely Luxembourg Garden

We almost didn't make it to the Luxembourg Gardens while we were in Paris.  We kept meaning to go and ended up making other plans each time.  During our last couple days though, we decided to head over and check them out. I am super glad we made it there because they are a wonderful place!

  This sculpture is in the Luxembourg gardens and we got a kick out of it after having visited the inspiration for it while we were in Roma!  

 

There are many, many gardens around Paris and they are a popular gathering spot for locals and tourists alike.  The Luxembourg Gardens had a more playful relaxed feeling to them than some of the other places around Paris, and it almost felt like a beach with all the people that were catching some rays on the beautiful day when we visited the Park.  

It also has some more quirky little qualities, like these bee hives that are kept in one section of the garden, complete with real live bees and all!  That picture on the lower left is my bee impression :)

There are also bocce ball courts at Luxembourg Gardens!  I love bocce and there were about 4 or 5 games going on at once on the bocce ball courts.  These people were serious about there game and had some superb throwing techniques.  Apparently the French are a force to be reckoned with on the bocce ball court.  Look out world.

        

        

        

We also found the awesome boat fountain area that proved to be yet another super entertaining way to spend an afternoon.  There was a big round pond/fountain and it had little mini sail boats floating around on it, and people around the edges had these long poles and would push the sailboats back out into the middle, or in some cases into epic battles with other sailboats.  Most of the little boats were decorated in the colors of a specific country with an abbreviated label of that country and its flag.  

Other boats weren't so politically inclined and sported various sea creature pictures.

My favorite one was the black sailed pirate ship which I am happy to report lived up to its reputation and somehow managed to go after several other boats, almost taking Russia out at one point.

Of course we spotted the US ship and cheered it on as it made its way around the pond :)

After watching the dramatic ship battles we decided to head home for the day, but when we passed by this fabulous turtle/horse/world globe fountain I couldn't resist the urge to splash around for a little while.  The weather was just gorgeous and it felt like the right thing to do!

It turned out well and we had a blast playing in the fountain for a little while.

Isn't it a happy fountain? Just look at that turtle! 

With all the walking in Paris its nice to sit and dip your toes in a fountain every once in a while, it was our Parisian Pedicure!

Paris is such a great place.  Even after spending a month exploring the city we were still finding new things to love about it in our last few days there.  It's truly a great city!

BONUS!! So I just remembered about this next place so I'll throw it in with this post too.  During our last couple days we got the "unlimited" metro ticket so we could zip all around town and go see the things we wanted to see again, and we decided to head out to the "Geode" which is kind of far and on it's own so we hadn't made the trip before.  It was pretty cool though! It's at a science museum in the very north eastern part of Paris but it's actually got a great area around it with parks and a canal and we're glad we made the trip out there to go check it out. Here are some pics!