Tag Archives: Luxembourg Gardens Paris

a beautiful afternoon in the Luxembourg Gardens

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For weeks we’ve had nothing but gloomy gray, drizzle and damp. Well, today was brilliantly sunny and cold. I jumped on the metro and headed to the 6th arrondissement to see the Vivian Maier photography exhibition at the Musée Luxembourg in the Luxembourg Gardens.

The 6th arrondissement is located in the heart of Paris’ Rive Gauche, or Left Bank. Considered by Parisians and visitors alike to be the quintessential Paris neighborhood, it’s home to the atmospheric Saint-Germain-des-Prés quartier, the Latin Quarter and the exquisite Luxembourg Gardens.

The gardens are famed for their calm atmosphere. Surrounding the fountain on the raised balustraded terraces are a series of statues of former French queens and saints. In the southwest corner, there’s an orchard and a puppet theatre.

It was cold, and the early afternoon light was beautiful. I love bright sunny cold days.

These photos were taken at 2 pm. I know it was 2 pm because I had a rendezvous with my ex-colleague and friend at 2:15 pm at that very spot.

We sat on two metal chairs in the sunshine and talked for over an hour. It was so nice to be able to sit outside in that lovely tranquil space.

We then headed over to the photo exhibition but there was a long queue of people waiting to get in. I’ll go back another day to see the exhibition before it closes mid-January. We decided to walk to the nearby Bon Marché department store instead. I’ve never understood why it’s called Bon Marché which means “cheap, inexpensive, low-cost”. This store is anything but. It’s the Paris equivalent of Bergdorf Goodman in NYC or Saks Fifth Avenue.

Here it is below, all gussied up for Christmas:

it’s a wrap! the Arc de Triomphe receives the Christo treatment

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Last Saturday was too beautiful to stay indoors, so I grabbed my camera and headed to the Champs-Elysées to check out the wrapped Arc de Triomphe that everyone’s talking about. It is indeed a triumph.

There was quite a crowd. As I walked around the monument it changed color with the light and angle.

Heading towards a metro station an hour later, I saw this poster below and gave a little shriek. Hooray! Vivian Maier, the famous but completely unknown photographer (until she died), is having an exhibition in Paris. The last time there was an exhibition in her name, it was in the south of France somewhere.

I’m excited. Her work is exciting. Plus, it’s in a museum in the Luxembourg Gardens that I’ve never visited before. (I’ve visited the Gardens, of course, but not the museum.) I’ll make a day of it. It’s not often that I find myself in that part of Paris …

Here’s the link to the museum with a brief description of Maier –

https://museeduluxembourg.fr/en/agenda/evenement/vivian-maier