Showing posts with label jardin du Luxembourg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jardin du Luxembourg. Show all posts

27 April 2011

Jardin du Luxembourg, Part Deux


Spending Sunday afternoon at the Jardin du Luxembourg wasn't enough. And we didn't have Baby X with us. The boys wanted to go back, and they wanted to share the experience with her. So we had to do it again... even though we only had one day left ... noooooooooooo...

Riding the Métro with four kids is an experience, to say the least. You never know how it's going to fill up...

grab the stroller and the kid standing on the seat...

look how it fills up...

there are signs requesting that you stand when things get crowded... the seats flip up and allow more space...

and then it's packed.

But the ride doesn't last forever...

Finally, you get off the train and go above ground...

And walking the tree-lined paths through the park is joyous...

a visual delight for art lovers...

as well as tree lovers!

Though it was a Monday, in the perfect weather there were so many people sitting in the park's chairs, relaxing and enjoying the beauty.

Or playing a game of boules.


We headed to the playground. Remember how I said that French playgrounds are cooler? I showed you a bit of that in Part Un... here's some more... yes, this is that same playground. It is huge and wildly popular... and you have to pay to get in :(  but it is totally worth it.

This time, the older kids decided to try the awesome swing contraption!
You can see Big G in the yellow shirt seated on the swing's seat. The rope is attached to a wheel on a track. You leap off a platform, jump onto the swing and whip around the oval overhead track.
Awesome!

Some of the ropes have the "button" lower and you can stand on it... like Baby X in the turquoise shirt is doing in the above picture.

Q-Man is finishing up the ride, almost back at the platform after whizzing around the track.
They were in heaven :)

I tried to find a better shot of the rope Eiffel Tower climbing structure...

Here Q-Man sits atop the train's smoke stack... this train had three 'cars' and was very popular.

The sand pit was incredible.
That tower-ish thing in the foreground had ropes and pulleys with buckets attached for hauling things up and down. 


The 'big kid' area was huge... my kids were all over the place and it was hard to get pictures of them in the tunnels, on the slides, or going up the ladders.

Then Miss C did a face plant ...
and it was time to go!

As we headed back to the house, we took in all the street art... it is everywhere and in so many forms...

Fountains...

Mosaic wall art...

Colorful window displays of swimsuits!
No matter where you look, creativity abounds.

Even the warning signs are more interesting than ours.


Up next...

Père Lachaise Cemetery. I think that'll be our final stop.

I know, this is getting to be like that slideshow your neighbor shares with you... never-ending... ever...


25 April 2011

Jardin du Luxembourg, Part Un

This is where we spent our last two days in Paris... a beautiful park with an amazing (of course) playground. The kids were free to run around, scream and shout, spin and slide, swing like Tarzan... all with reckless abandon. They were in heaven! And when the kids are feeling good and having fun, all is right in everyone's world ;-)  Note: there are lots and lots and lots of pictures here. I couldn't stop myself.

The jardin was in full bloom. It was such a lovely show of Spring in all its glory!







Pictured below is a wonderful pool where you can rent little sailboats or just hang out. You can see there are lots and lots of people hanging out. It was a perfect hang out day :)


At the playground, Miss C tried out all of the boing-y playthings...

Some sort of amorphous blobbish thing,

a motorcycle,

a dinosaur/dragon... we weren't sure,

a frog,

and a bunny.
She sure gave each one what-for!

When she was done boinging alone, she enlisted Big G's help...

 Such a happy girl!

Q-Man hooked up with some preteen hooligans and did the group boing-y thing...
 Standing up...

and laying down.

When they got tired of all that bouncing around, everyone turned to climbing...

Big G is in bright blue and Q-Man is at the same height in navy and brown.
This structure is a rope rendition of the Eiffel Tower.

Miss C likes to climb, too...
rope ladders

regular ladders

rope grid ladders

big freakin' stairs

across rope bridges

But most of her climbing was to get to a...

SLIDE!


She takes her sliding very seriously.

And look!
 She does get tired!
For about a second...

Then it was time to go spin...
solo for Miss C.

With big daddy pushes for the boys...

who clung to their chuthers for fear of flying off...

which happened anyway.

And apparently cut his lip...
which meant keeping a dirty piece of napkin on it for the next 48 hours...

NO pictures, PLEASE!

"man, it really is hard to eat with a piece of wadded up dirty napkin pressed to my wounded lip."

We were ready to head back to the house after a truly blissful day!

And we even got to see love on the streets of Paris!

And have some not so loving moments of our own...

Mommy really doesn't like having her hair pulled.

I know this was totally picture-heavy, but I really didn't want to scrimp on the shared fun ;-)  The playground is almost excessive in its amazingness. Total kid paradise. There will be more in Part Deux!

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