PARC MONTSOURIS

Parc Montsouris is one of the capital's most attractive gardens, as much for its size (just over 15 hectares), its plant species and wildlife as for the monuments it shelters. This English-style garden, designed under Napoleon III during the Haussmann era, is one of the capital's four "green" cardinal points, along with the Buttes-Chaumont (north), the Bois de Boulogne (west) and the Bois de Vincennes (east). Inaugurated in 1869, the park provided Parisians with a superb walking area from the outset, following in the footsteps of other parks such as Buttes-Chaumont, created at the same time. Between 1867 and 1878, engineer Jean Charles Alphand transformed a former quarry into this magnificent garden, leaving nothing to chance. Plantations and groves were planted according to a skilfully modelled topography, to create beautiful views towards the Latin Quarter and, above all, the Pantheon, a ^19th-century artificial landscape of valleys, grottoes and artificial water features, including the lake, which extends over a hectare... gigantic works for an idealised nature, all aspects of which were concentrated in a single location. Later, and still in line with a resolutely modern plan, two railroad lines gave access to the site: the former Sceaux line (now RER line B) and the "petite ceinture", a circuit now abandoned, but whose tracks can still be seen (or followed) at various points around the capital. The old belvedere alone testifies to the desire to make a lasting impression. Built for the 1867 Universal Exhibition, it was nothing more and nothing less than a copy of the palace of the Bey of Tunis, later reassembled in the park and transformed into a meteorological observatory. Unfortunately, the building, which was abandoned and then listed as a Monument Historique, burned down in the 1990s. It can only be glimpsed in Agnès Varda's film Cléo de 5 à 7... But other constructions are still present, such as - to name but a few - the southern sight of the Paris meridian, the northern opposite of which is located at the foot of the Blute-fin mill in Montmartre (but not accessible), or the hut of the great equatorial of the Observatoire du Bureau des Longitudes. Don't miss the Pavillon Montsouris, a restaurant created in 1889 and covered by a glass roof in 1930, its statuary and remarkable trees. Last but not least, the park has been home to one of Paris's weather stations since 1873.