Oy With the Poodles Already: Paris Walk #3

Date: 10/3/12 (?)

A Walk in the Park: Montparnasse and the Jardin du Luxembourg

I went on this walk with Cori and Carine. It starts at the Tour Montparnasse, which is a really big (kind of ugly) skyscraper in the middle of Paris. It's actually 689 feet tall, with 59 floors. It totally doesn't fit in with the surroundings, and the twin tower that was supposed to go with it was cancelled due to new zoning laws that Paris created. In my opinion, that was a good idea. After seeing this, we headed towards the Jardin du Luxembourg. Along the walk, you see lots of cafes and restaurants where famous writers and artists used to like to hang out. People such as Picasso, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway. That was pretty cool. It made me feel a little bit like I was in Midnight in Paris. Another stop we were supposed to make was to look at this statue of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, wrongly accused of treason. His statue is placed in an area where tourists will hopefully not see it, because apparently even though he was falsely convicted, they still don't like people knowing about him very much. After treating ourselves to macarons from Jean-Paul Hevin, we finished our walk at the Jardin du Luxembourg. We saw a mini-statue of liberty, lots of joggers, people playing a popular game called Petanque (similar to Bocce Ball), and beehives; all things we were supposed to check off a list. It was rainy, so we called off our walk a little early, meaning we didn't get to spend much time exploring the gardens. But I have been back there since, and it really is a very beautiful garden, perfect for lounging, reading, whatever. Just ask Kaitlin Fitts, she'll tell you. She wants to marry that garden.