Wandering through the Luxembourg Gardens is one of the best free things to do in Paris. It covers a huge area of 24 hectares, and has formal landscaped gardens, open grassy lawns, and shaded wooded areas.
The highlights here are Marie Medici’s Italian-Renaissance palace, the Medici Fountain, and over 100 monuments and statues scattered throughout the grounds.
We spent some time lingering around the palace and the pretty lake just enjoying the surrounds and the sun.
I especially enjoyed walking along the terraces lined with a series of marble statues known as ‘the 20 Queens of France’.
If you have specific sights that you want to see, then it’s useful to have a map of the gardens because they are so big, you can easily miss things. However if you have the time, then the best approach is to wander freely and simply see what you see. We ambled through the gardens without any particular goals and whilst we certainly didn’t cover everything, it’s all so lovely that we didn’t mind at all.