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| Portrait hanging at the Jardin des Plantes |
In case you, my fellow Book Club members, are spending this snowstorm weekend reading Zarafa: The true story of a giraffe's journey from the plains of Africa to the heart of post-Napoleonic France, you might enjoy seeing some photos of the Jardin des Plantes where Zarafa lived her life in Paris. The photos were taken on a visit in 2012. I had read the book so when I saw Zarafa posters advertising the park, I just had to go. It has been an absolute pleasure to re-read this gentle creature's story and to spend a few hours (mentally) living in the 1800's again.
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| Entrance to the Jardin des Plantes |
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My ticket, now bookmark |
It cost a mere 3 euros to enter Paradise! ($3.65)
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| I love the red theme here! |
There were statues dotted around the garden.
This might be my favorite - it certainly shows the fascination that scientists of that Romantic age had for exotic places like "wild America".
The grand building in the background is the National Museum of Natural History.
It houses a huge collection of animals and other exotica from around the world especially regions where France was a colonial power in the 1800's. Below is a photo of the "African Caravan" in the Great Hall of Evolution.
My camera wasn't up to the job of photographing in the dim light of the gallery, but I think these two pictures from Wikipedia give an idea of the immense size of the building. The animals are real - stuffed - and life-size. It's quite impressive to stand next to them. And imagine the carnage that created this exhibit.
One scene was especially riveting - a taxidermed elephant with a hunter's howdah on its back being attacked by a tiger.
The hunter was the Duke of Orleans, one of the many royals banned from France in 1886. He was hunting tigers in India with a group of others all on elephants. The cornered tigresse attacked the howdah, in which sat the duke. The tiger escaped, but was hunted down the next day. The duke had the tiger stuffed and arranged in this scene with another conveniently dead elephant to commemerate the event. The duke walked away without a scratch.
Back out in the garden, there was lots more to see. I loved the variety of trees; some in manicured rows, some historic, the whole lush and imbued with green earthiness.
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| Too early for leaves on these majestic plane trees. |
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| A Cedar of Lebanon |
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| This one's historic - acquired from No. America and planted in 1811. Luckily Zarafa didn't eat it's leaves when it was just a sapling! (Please excuse the blurry photo) |
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| Another North American tree. Jean Robin, an arborist and herbologist, received some Black Locust seeds and planted them in his garden around 1600. His son transplanted his father's tree here in the Jardin des Plantes around 1630. |
and followed the path that wound up the little hill to the top.
From above, I got a better view of the Lebanon Cedar:
I kept winding upward
And reached the top!
A pleasant place to sit
...with some reading matter.
Too bad about Alima and Marc. Sounds like a bad break-up. However, the view of the tree canopy from the belvedere was lovely.
On the way down was another lesson
about trees. It seems that the root systems are often as voluminous as the visiible part of the tree - branches and trunk.
Of course where there are gardens, there must be bee hives. Or as they prefer, a "Hotel for Bees".
And then there was this very quirky rock. Help! I need a geologist!
So that was my day at the Jardin des Plantes. It was definitely time for a coffee and a snack.
Hope you enjoyed the tour. See you Wednesday!
