Jardin du Luxembourg and the Pantheon

After class and a sandwich on Wednesday, Meg, my classmate Su Han and I decided to walk over to the Pantheon in the Latin Quarter. Our route took us through the Jardin du Luxembourg, the main park for this part of Paris, between the 5th and 6th arrondissements. It is known for its sculpture, both its permanent collectionof civic pieces and its installations. I was most intrigued by this creation: legs in a plant pot. I really like the plant pot, but I can't quite get past the legs.


Less confusing and more pleasing to my eye was the giant head on one side of the central fountain and lawn.

The centrepiece of the Jardin is the Palais du Luxembourg, a former royal residence (and sometime prison - so goes the history of most Parisian palaces). In front of it there is a large pond on which the children and young at heart sail remote controlled boats. You can hire these for 30-60 minutes, so I see an outing in our future!

You may notice, as we did not, the large grey cloud hovering over the palace. Well, as we neared the Pantheon the heavens opened and within a few seconds I was soaked through again.

I began to dry off inside, and was surprised that I really didn't remember the interior much at all. It was bigger and lighter than I thought, even with the rain outside. If you are looking for some deeper reflection than 'big' and 'light', I recommend Meg's post on the Pantheon.

The centrepiece of the Pantheon is the replica of Foucault's pendulum, his pioneering and ingenious experiment that demonstrated the rotation of the earth.

Although Meg and I agreed we would love to see the original floor-to-gallery windows that made the Pantheon so unusual, I enjoyed the paintings that replaced them. This is a luminous depiction of St Genevieve's death.

There were paintings of war, kings and saints. My favourite paintings were the above and the depiction of Joan of Arc. Downstairs in the lower level they buried many great French artists, thinkers and heroes. Here's the late Victor Hugo (he keeps popping up).

Having spent hours in the Pantheon, we were done for the day, and walked through the Latin Quarter, past the Sorbonne, to the metro.