The Fountains of Saint Cloud

IMG_3208, originally uploaded by Reechard.

The weather in Paris is hot again, after a few days of cooler weather. My brother David and his family arrived on Wednesday and have been seeing lots of museums and churches, so we felt it was time for an afternoon in nature. Nature according to Le Notre, the famous designer of the Versailles gardens. Saint Cloud was one of the last gardens he designed and it is much wilder and less contained than Versailles. It is built into the hillside and he has made extensive uses of fountains that harness the fall of water to create some magnificent plumes that shoot over 50 feet into the air.

On Sundays, the fountains are turned on for 15-20 minutes at 3, 4, and 5 o'clock. We ate, drank, read books, played cards and played boule under the trees. A thoroughly French afternoon enjoying our plebian pleasures in the old aristrocratic haunts of the eighteenth century.

View slideshow of our afternoon.