Tuileries Garden

The Tuileries Garden is the oldest and the largest public park in Paris, located in the 1st arrondissement, between the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre Museum. The garden was created by Catherine de Medicis in 1564 as part of the Tuileries Palace. It was designed in the Italian style to remind the Queen of her native Tuscany. In the years 1660-1664 the garden was redesigned by André Le Nôtre, a landscape architect known mostly for his work at Versailles. He transformed the garden into a formal French garden with the symmetrical plan and long perspectives. The architect added a long terrace along the riverbank and created a central axis which was later extended after the creation of the Champs-Elysées. It was not until 1667 that the royal garden was opened to the public. On 1 January 2005 the park was officially incorporated into the Musée du Louvre.

Today, the park contains numerous sculptures, fountains as well as two big basins and two museums which are the only preserved buildings of the Palais de Tuileries: the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume and the Musée de l'Orangerie, which holds Claude Monet's famous water lily paintings. The Tuileries Garden is a place visited daily by hundreds of Parisian and tourists who can relax strolling along the garden's alleys or sit comfortably on the benches or chairs scattered around the park.