Parks in Paris Region

Could the City of Light also be a city of green? Between our parks and gardens, the capital is packed with places where vegetation rules. The parks of Paris are the favourite haunts of Parisians when the sun comes out, offering a number of activity options, such as reading in the shade of the trees, enjoying drinks with friends, a family picnic or a treasure hunt for the children.

Do you know the difference between a park and a garden? A garden is generally a closed plot where plants are grown in a shared ecosystem. A park is quite simply an area containing several of these gardens. So various landscaping styles can be seen within a single park.

Often very large, the parks of Paris feature buildings that are open to visitors. The parc de la Villette alone, for example, is home to the Zénith Paris - La Villette, the Grande Halle, the Cité de la Musique, a Pathé cinema, the Philharmonie de Paris and several other places of distraction.

The nearby parc des Buttes-Chaumont boasts Rosa Bonheur, one of the trendiest guinguettes in Paris. But you’ll have to earn that cocktail! Because this 25-hectare park is the hilliest in the entire city.

In many cases, the parks of the Paris Region have their own château. Or is it the other way round? That’s a good question, when it’s hard to say which is more beautiful, more elegant, the park or the palace. Some would say that a château lacks splendour without a park. Vegetation does indeed have the power to bring out the best in stone, especially when the latter is hundreds of years old.

The Château de Groussay is an excellent example with its certified Remarkable Garden, as is the Château de Breteuil, whose red stone strikes a perfect balance with the green foliage of the trees. Then there’s the château de Fontainebleau, which has all the ornamental greenery that such a monument could dream of. Together, its three gardens, park and woodlands cover some 130 hectares.