See the Gardens of Paris and Beyond

August 4th, 2015

Great gardens of Paris and beyond is the destination for our “big” garden trip of 2016. This is Chateau de Villandry.

Our “big” garden trip for 2016 is ready, and next year’s destination is… Paris in late summer.

This is a place some of our regulars suggested, and France is definitely a country with some great gardens and great gardening heritage (not to mention food, wine and art).

We’re going to see such world-famous gardens as Monet’s Giverny and the Palace Versailles formal gardens, but we’re also carving out visits to the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral and France’s Champagne country.

And to top off this 8-day “Spotlight on Paris” trip, we’ll have dinner in the Eiffel Tower, take an evening cruise on the Seine River, and offer a choice of an open day in Paris, a day trip to the stunning gardens at the Chateau de Villandry, or a day trip to the Fontainbleu Royal Residence.

The trip will take place Sept. 19-26, 2016. It’s being operated by Collette Vacations and Lowee’s Group Tours and being hosted by yours truly. See the full itinerary on Lowee’s website.

The trip flies direct from Philadelphia to Paris. Rather than bouncing around from hotel to hotel, we’ll stay all six nights at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile.

The trip cost, including hotel, airfare, admissions, guides and nine meals, is $4,324 per person double. The Villandry day trip is $151 extra ($90 per person if 35 or more people go). Fontainebleu is $100 extra.

If you’re interested, come on out to a free trip night on Tue., Aug. 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Best Western Premier Hotel and Conference Center, 800 East Park Drive, Harrisburg, next to The Point Shopping Center.

Matthew D’Eramo from Collette, Chrissie Kelly from Lowee’s and I will give you all of the details and show you what’s on the itinerary. Call or email Chrissie at 717-657-9658 or CKelly@lowees.com to let us know you’re coming so we can have enough seats.

France is the main major player on the world-class gardening stage that we haven’t yet visited. We’ve been to South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, England and this year, Italy, so it’s time to check out French-style gardening first hand.

We picked end of summer because the weather should be pleasant with lots of plants still in peak form. It can get hot in Paris in summer.

September should be a pleasant month to visit Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens.

We’ll start with an overnight flight and spend the first day in Paris strolling through a pair of nearby gardens.

The first is Luxembourg Gardens, a 60-acre park and gardens dating to 1612 and inspired by Italy’s Boboli Gardens.

This is home to France’s Senate, and it has numerous statues, fountains, trees and flower gardens in a park-like setting in the heart of Paris. One statue everyone will recognize is what was the model for New York’s Statue of Liberty – still standing in Luxembourg.

Our second stop will be to the Jardin des Plantes, a city botanical garden that dates to 1635 and is part of the French National Museum of Natural History. (Jardin is the French word for garden, by the way.)

Jardin des Plantes has a variety of themed gardens, including an alpine garden, a vegetable garden, a peony garden, a “garden of the bees and birds,” a perennial garden, a rose garden, and a “Stegasaurus Garden” of plants with ancient lineage.

The next day is a trip to Bois Richeux, one of the oldest farms in France and now sporting a medieval garden.

People have been growing plants there for 2,000 years. In the 12^th century, it became a 2,400-acre farm with a manor house, barn and out-buildings. In 1996, it was turned into a public space to display what gardening in the Middle Ages might have looked like – which was very practical with mostly medicinal plants, vegetables and perfume plants.

After a tour at Bois Richeux, we’ll head to Giverny and the gardens of impressionist painter Claude Monet.

This is the place in the country where Monet lived in the late 1800s until he died in 1926. He loved flowers and arranged them a lot like he painted. He mixed colors and textures masterfully and liked to let the flowers intermingle with one another.

One spot in this garden is home to one of the world’s best-known garden views – the wisteria-covered Japanese bridge that spans Giverny’s water garden. We’ll see it as well as the more than 2-acre flower garden that Monet planted, tended and painted.

Then it’s back to Paris for dinner under the Eiffel Tower and that evening cruise on the Seine River.

We’ll change gears the next day and do more “touristy” things – seeing the highlights and landmarks of Paris, including the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs-Elysees, the Place de la Concorde and the Place Vendome.

The highlight of highlights this day will be a visit to the Louvre, arguably the world’s best or at least best-known museum. The masterpieces here include Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. Dinner at one of the city’s fine restaurants is on the menu for this evening.

The next day is that optional day. For those who like some time to set out on their own, you’d have all day to see Paris as you wish. Our guide will give you suggestions and tips.

If you’d rather see some more gardens or stick with a planned agenda, you’ll have two other choices.

One is a trip to the Fontainebleau Royal Residence, a chateau and palace that was home to French royalty for seven centuries, including Napoleon.

You’ll be able to see the ornate buildings, art galleries and French- and English-style gardens here, then stop at Barbizon, the “village of painters,” where you’ll feel like you’re walking through an impressionist painting.

The other day-trip option is to the Loire Valley and the gardens at Plessis Sasnieres, followed by an afternoon at the Chateau de Villandry.

Sasnieres is a 4-acre private garden filled with both unusual and unusually beautiful plants. It has a lake as a centerpiece and a nice kitchen garden and home orchard in addition to the many specimens.

Villandry is the last great chateau and castle built at the end of the Renaissance. Impressive as it was (and is), it wasn’t home to royalty but to a French minister of finance in the 1500s. It’s still privately owned today.

Villandry was created at a time when the practical gardens of the Middle Ages were giving way to over-the-top ornamental gardens. Villandry’s landscape is an impressive example of that with its acres of formal gardens, parterres and what’s been called the “world’s most famous vegetable garden.”

Next up is a day in Champagne country. We’ll bus to ancient Reims to see the Notre-Dame de Reims where French kings were crowned, do a walking tour through this town of cafes and art galleries, head to the village of Epernay to walk down its famous Avenue de Champagne, and finish the day sampling various Champagnes, some of them made in cellars dating to the 4^th century.

We’ll cap the trip with a visit to Versailles and its palace gardens.

The last day features a visit to the region’s crowning attraction, the Palace of Versailles.

This huge palace in the ritzy Paris suburbs was the seat of French royalty from 1682 when it was built by King Louis XIV to 1789 and the dawn of the French revolution.

It houses the Hall of Mirrors (still used for important government affairs), five chapels, the Museum of the History of France, and some of the most elaborate, impressive gardens and water features the world has ever seen.

The final piece of our trip is a farewell dinner with wine, Champagne and a cabaret show at the Paradis Latin.