Luxembourg Garden

Another day took us back across the river to Luxembourg Garden, one of Paris' larger interior  green spaces, a place for recreation as well as heritage and beauty. We'd taken grand-daughter Penelope there a couple times, for boating and pony rides, when she was much younger.

Checking out the scales at the park's entrance; alas,
doesn't work unless you pay 20 centimes

Statues everywhere, this one a take on the boca veritas
in Rome

George Sand

Solar-powered pigeon

Stendhal

Sculpture celebrating France's intellectual role
in ending slavery 

Beginning a series of statues of "illustrious women
of France"...all of them royalty...

The pond and beyond

Luxembourg's distinctive chairs, of which there are hundreds,
perhaps thousands

Luxembourg Palais, Marie de Medici's official residence while
serving as Regent until her son, Louis XIII, became king; now
the meeting place of the French Senate

More illustrious women

Sailboat rentals

Pond and palais

Avast! Turner would have loved it; Penelope did

Among the several immense lawns; treading upon the grass is
interdicted; and strictly enforced, too, as we know

Leaves in the trees beginning to change, but matching the fall
flowers, which are still going strong; more illustrious women
looking on

The one lawn where sitting is permitted

Marie de Medici herself

Pony corral; tourist families are gone, schools are

in session; the ponies are probably getting a little 

worried about the glue factory

Sword-fighting instruction in the park; Luxembourg has probably
seen its share of real duels