My morning walk in the Jardin

In Canada I get up most mornings in the 6:30 to  7:30 range and even though there is a 6 hour time difference to France I'm getting up at a similar hour here. I've gotten into a routine of walking down to the Jardin du Luxembourg most mornings which is .97 kilometres from my apartment and then walking the inside perimeter of the Jardin which is another 1.22 kilometres in length. Actually I walk it one and a half times cutting through the centre on the second lap. With the return walk to my apartment I end up with about 10,000 steps and a little over 4 kilometres of walking. It takes about 18 minutes each way and about 25 minutes to walk the perimeter so in total about an hour and fifteen in total or an hour and a half if I take my time. This invigorates me for the day and guarantee's that I get my steps in for the day which is a minimum of 10,000 steps every day and an average above 20,000 per day over the trip. As of last night I'm averaging 23,524 steps per day through the first 26 days which is 7.05 miles/11.34 kilometres per day. This has allowed me to keep my weight stable even though I'm eating way too much bread, cheese and pate. My pants keep falling down so I may not be losing any weight but I think I'm losing inches. Which ever it is ... I'll take it.

On Saturday I took my camera with me to try to capture the Jardin from the joggers point of view. They are out in force on the weekend. There may have been some repeats since I walk and most jog but I counted about 350 people jogging/walking through one trip around the inside perimeter. And although most are young there are a surprising number of the older generation like myself out jogging.

The Jardin has an interesting history. After the assassination of Henri IV, his florentine widow, Marie de Medici felt estranged at the Louve and was homesick for Florence. She bought a home that belonged to Francois du Luxembourg and the property around it to build a vast Palace to remind her of her childhood home in Florence. I blogged some pictures of this earlier.

The Queen devoted most of her attention to the gardens where she had 2,000 elms planted. Taking her queue from the Romans she also had an aqueduct built all the way from the northern suburbs of Paris to supply the fountains of her new Eden. I've lost count of the number of fountains I've run across as I explore deeper and deeper each day.

The Jardins are a stone's throw from the Sorbonne and are thus permeated with students and literary associations since they have for quite some time been annexed by the University and the people of the neighbourhood. Over the generations, the original gardens have been remodelled so little remains of the original Florentine design. Also large chunks of it were sold off with the rapid urbanization of Paris. A fellow I was talking to told me that they originally extended all the way to Montparnasse which is very close to my apartment. The present vista was redesigned in the 19'th century. They are english style in the south west corner, there is an orchard in the south east corner and even an apiary on the east side. In the centre, of course, is the famous central octagonal basin, the hub of the gardens. It is encircled by 50 sculpted female heroines over the history of France. They watch over generations of little children who come down to the fountain to float their model boats and of course dozens of Latin quarter students who have deserted their libraries to bask in the sun on one of the hundreds of green chairs dotting the park. I think every one of these students are reading some philosopher they are studying or at least that is what I seem to pick up from the title of their book.

I've walked the Jardin perimeter about a dozen times now and every time I see something different. I tried to capture some of these delights in this series of pics although many of them are just shots of the pathway as I was walking.

Life is good .... Enjoy

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