Jardin des Tuileries

Garden · Tuileries (1st)Paris,France

A formal gravel garden between the Louvre and the Concorde, laid out on the straight line Paris later carried west to the Arc de Triomphe.

The Jardin des Tuileries is a formal gravel garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, laid out on one straight line. Stand at the rim of the octagonal basin at the Concorde end and the whole axis is in front of you: the obelisk, the rise of the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe two kilometres off. Turn round and the same path runs east through a wood of chestnuts. Loose green chairs sit around the water, and people drag them round to face the sun. The garden was laid out to frame a palace that no longer exists. Catherine de' Medici began it in 1564 on ground where tile kilns had long worked, and the French word for those kilns, tuileries, became its name. From 1664 André Le Nôtre rebuilt it for Louis XIV around one straight line running east to west, with basins set along the path and raised terraces down both long sides. Paris later carried that line on westward. The palace at the eastern end burned in 1871, and the ruin stood until it was pulled down in 1883.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come back near sunset in early May or early August — In those weeks the sun drops almost straight along the garden's central line, and the whole view west fills with low light.
Keep to the river side in high summer — A funfair fills the northern terrace along rue de Rivoli through July and August, and you hear it from the big basin.
Look at the two winged horses at the Concorde gate — The sculptor Coysevox carved them for the king's château at Marly. These are copies; the originals went into the Louvre in the 1980s.
In real heat, head for the middle — The two ends of the garden are open gravel with almost no cover, and the only continuous shade is the block of clipped trees between them.
Expect fences you did not plan for — The Louvre runs the garden, restoration work moves around the terraces, and fashion houses hire parts for shows, so a section may be shut.

Things to do

1
Stand in the gap where the palace stood
Walk to the eastern end of the garden until the Louvre's two long wings run away on either side of you. A palace closed the gap between those wings for three hundred years, and today the space is empty. The only building left standing in it is a small triumphal arch, which once stood in the palace's forecourt. The two end pavilions, left and right, are all that survives of the palace here.
2
Measure the Arc de Triomphe with your thumb
Pull one of the loose green chairs to the western rim of the eight-sided basin and sit down low, close to the water. The obelisk on the Place de la Concorde, the rise of the Champs-Élysées and the arch stack up in one line. Hold your thumb out at arm's length and it covers the arch.
3
Walk the terrace Le Nôtre raised above the river
Take the ramp at the Concorde end up onto the long terrace Le Nôtre raised along the river side of the garden. Fewer people come up here. On one side you look down into the tops of the chestnut trees. On the other side, through gaps between the trees, you see the Seine and the roofs of the Left Bank.