The Tuileries Garden in Paris is an old French park in the heart of the metropolis

The famous Tuileries Garden, located in the heart of the French capital, is one of the most important sights of Paris. This garden and park complex, made in the classical French style, is often compared with the theater in the open air, where sculptures, plants and various elements of the landscape act as decorations. Today the Tuileries is recognized as the largest regular park in the territory of its state. It is a favorite vacation spot for Parisians, as well as guests of the capital.

Location:

Territorial garden of the Tuileries is located in the heart of Paris. The green zone of the garden and park complex stretches along the right bank of the Seine River and as a whole takes twenty-five and a half hectares. The length of the park is nine hundred and twenty meters, the width reaches three hundred and twenty meters.

From the south, the Tuileries is bounded by a river. To the east of the garden is the Louvre - between it and the Tuileries is the Place Carrousel. On the west side, the green quarters of the park pass to the famous Place de la Concorde, beyond which the Champs Elysees start . The northern border of the Tuileries is designated Rivoli, the longest street in Paris, which leads to the Place Vendôme.

The Jardin des Tuileries: History

Contrary to popular belief, the name "Tuileries" has nothing to do with tulips. In the XV century on this place was the outskirts of the city, occupied by a dump and clay quarry. The French word "tuile", later called the garden, means "tile", or "tile".

The idea to break the garden complex in this place belonged to Maria de 'Medici. After the death of her husband, Henry II, she ordered to buy a piece of land outside the walls of the Louvre and build a palace on this site. A bit later, at the castle of the Tuileries, an orchard was laid for walks by the order of the Queen Regent . Initially, it was made in Italian style to remind Maria Medici of her distant homeland.

A hundred years later, André Lenotre, the chief gardener at the court of Louis XIV., Completely reshaped the Tuileries garden, giving it the features of a classic French style. Almost the same shape of the garden remains in our days. It was during the Lenotre in the Tuileries that the central alley was built, two large ponds were dug out and decorated flower beds decorated with ornamentation. A distinctive feature of the Tuileries ensemble is the transparency of the borders, in which the surrounding space - and even the sky! - organically fits into the general scenery of the park.

After the departure of the royal court from the Louvre to Versailles the park gradually came to desolation, overgrown with trees and weeds. Not passed for him without a trace and blazing in the country of war and revolution. And only in the late eighties of the 20th century the Tuileries park and garden complex was decided to restore and restore, returning to it all the features of a magnificent design developed by the unbeaten master Lenotrom - the father of the French style.

Tuileries today

In general, the Tuileries garden today can be represented as consisting of three parts: a "large square" with ornamentation, a forest and an octagonal basin. The main part of the garden is formed by five large avenues, decorated with sculptures and semicircular niches made of stone. The location of all the design elements of the park (alleys, flower beds, ponds and groves) is verified to the smallest detail and is subject to strict symmetry.

The plant world of the park is extremely diverse. In his collection, almost three thousand plants, brought from different parts of the Earth, are collected. In the garden and park area are also located two museums, expositions of which are represented in the surviving buildings of the Tuileries Palace: these are the famous "greenhouses" and "de la Pom" galleries.

The garden is a pedestrian zone; The only mode of transport permitted here is a bicycle. The park is always calm and quiet. Visitors spend time walking slowly along the avenues, admiring the flowers, ponds and stone statues, visiting exhibitions and vernissages in the open air, and on holidays - participating in folk festivals and balls.

Gallery of statues

One can not ignore one more feature that the Tuileries garden is noteworthy. The sculptures decorating the complex represent the most diverse time epochs, from the Middle Ages to our days.

The richest collection of garden and park sculptures is collected on the alleys of the main part of the garden. It served as the motive for another nickname of the Tuileries - the "Louvre Hall". Guests and holidaymakers strolling through the park have the opportunity to admire the works of the brothers Cousteau, Karpo, Cuauzo, Barrois, Ken, Maillol and many other famous masters of the past and the present.

However, you should know that most of the sculptures in the garden are copies. The originals of the masterpieces themselves are in the museum of the Louvre Museum.

Interesting facts about the Tuileries

It is interesting that the Tuileries Garden in Paris was open to the general public only after the French Revolution, since 1799.

The main axis of the Tuileries complex departs from the western part of the Louvre facade and tends through the Arc de Triomphe in the direction of the arch of the Defens. Thus, the garden is on the Historical axis of Paris, which is also known as the "axis of the three arches".

It was from here, from the territory of the complex, that the first balloon in the world was launched by the Montgolfier brothers.

Description of the park Tuileries contains the famous novel "Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas.