Luxembourg playground x2

The Jardin du Luxembourg has a huge playground that my kids love (the above picture shows less than 1/4 of it). You have to pay to get in (currently 2,40 for kids and 1,80 for adults), but we don't go that often, and when we do, we stay for several hours. If you go when the French kids are in school, it's pretty empty, and usually has a few other English-speaking families. But if you stay until school gets out, it gets crazy, fast.

We've gone twice now, and I realized that I didn't post about the first time, which was a few days before Jill's arrival.

I didn't think Max would be interested, so I sent him off to take pictures and then come find us when he was finished. He surprised me by coming back after about an hour, joining us, and playing with Eva for the rest of the time.

Incidentally, one of my favorite things about this playground are the mature trees growing within it. They provide shade and beauty for the parents sitting on benches!

In what universe is this a comfortable position that one gets into by choice??

Creepy giant fungus way up in a tree!

I love it that I have pictures of all of my kids on this equipment when they were 2, then older and older, until now, when they are 4, 10, and 14! It's been a favorite spot of ours for a very long time.

Remember the area where the old men play boules (otherwise known as pétanque or bocce ball)? On this day, it was packed, and the jacket racks were full to capacity.

They seem to take it pretty seriously. And for the first time, we saw a woman playing, too!

We went back last Thursday. Eva and Lucas were feeling better and we were experiencing some pretty severe cabin fever. Max stayed home with a fever and cough.

The park was in a perfectly lovely stage of Fall -- tons of leaves on the ground to crunch pleasantly underfoot, yet plenty of leaves still on the trees for color.

Lucas and Eva both really enjoy this part of the sandbox (all Parisian parks have sandboxes) that has pulleys for loading sand and chutes for dumping it. You've just gotta love something that entertains your kids who are 6 years apart!

I sat on a bench and read The Zookeeper's Wife. I'm really enjoying it.

I kept looking up at the trees, because leaves were falling down every few seconds. I tried to capture that in a photo (I almost said on film!), but I could never time it quite right.

Eva was amazed by the size of these leaves!

We actually had to leave because it was getting so cold -- even I was cold. I know, right? I'm blaming it on Daylight Savings and dusk arriving so much earlier.

The boules courts were largely empty.

All of the flower beds have been re-planted with mums. Eva was most intrigued by these "piles of flowers". I used to think I hated mums, but Paris is changing my mind about them.

view looking up from the bus stop

It was so good to get out again. And the parks are so lovely here, it feels like a good outing for me as well as for the children!