Les Tuilleries

There are many gardens and parks in Paris. I'm pleasantly surprised how many of them are child appropriate. There are beautiful gardens right next to the Louvre called les Jardins des Tuilleries. They were created for Catherine de Medicis when she moved to the Louvre in 1559. Over the years the gardens went through transformations and it was Louis XIV who made them the way they are today. (Louis XIV loved making things symmetrical and is also responsible for the gardens at Versailles)

The Tuilleries are right next to the Place de la Concorde as well.
This is a view up the Champs Elycées from the gardens. You can see all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe.
This is the playground. I'm not terribly impressed with it because it scares me. It is so high off the ground and the ground is a squishy type of ground that is still way too hard. Granted, this playground is for kids over the age of 5, but I still think I'll avoid it.
They do, however, have trampolines for the kids. And the minimum age is 2 so Timmy can participate. Each child has his own trampoline so as to avoid any collisions or accidents


It is also a great place to play Boules (or Bocci, or Pétanque, or whatever you want to call it). I loved seeing all the boules courts in the south of France (where it is a national past time. It's not unusual to see a lot of boules games going on with old men in their caps sitting around trying to guess whose ball is closer to the cochonnet.) We have taught it to the boys and the Tuilleries is a great place to play. A big part of the game is standing around trying to guess where to toss your ball and then measuring out who is closest.

Fête Foraine du Jardin desTuileries

Today we went to a carnival. Every summer there is a carnival set up in the Tuilleries gardens next to the Louvre. It's a complete rip off with each ride averaging 2 Euros/ride, but the boys loved it. It is complete with a ferris wheel, rides, games, and of course, churros and cotton candy.

Matt is trying to get a goal. Timmy's favorite ride was the cars. I just strapped him in and away he went.

The boys loved the bumper cars. They were also my favorite at carnivals. I went to ride with them only to discover that my hips were too big to sit in the car. So I opted for a motor cycle instead. Thomas had one incident where he complained of whip lash, and the boys were plotting for the next time to both gang up on people that crashed them hard. I told them it was part of the ride.






There was also a dinosaur display. It was so lame compared to the one we recently went to. Oh well.

I think that we will enjoy coming here as the boys get bigger every summer. They really wanted to do the shooting game but they were too young for them. Maybe next year we'll get Doug to come with us and show the boys his mad gaming skillz when it comes to carnival games. Perhaps all those years at Lagoon will pay off the he can win the boys a prize.