Il Dolce far Niete

One of our favorite places in Paris is Luxembourg Gardens.  The first time we went there, we walked around the big lake where the children sail the boats, sat in some chairs, and thought the whole place wonderful.

A few years later, we rented an apartment one block from Luxembourg, and as we entered the closest gate, we didn't recognize anything we saw.  We literally spent the entire day wandering around, and never even found the original lake we remembered.  We were awed not only by the sheer size of the park, but the many, many, intimate settings you could find to sit and relax, and feel like the park was there just for you.  

There's a huge children's area, along with basketball and tennis courts, and pony rides,

a puppet theater, 

  


food areas, 

huge green spaces, 

(stay off the grass, s'il vous plait)

 an art museum, numerous statues,

even a pavilion for concerts, 

 other lakes and fountains, unbelievable trees and vegetation, fruit trees, and even an area full of tiny, adorable bee hives, occupied by french bees! 

 I could go on and on.  We ended up going to the garden every single day for the entire week.  The weather was perfect that year, and we fell in love with 

il dolce far niete

 (Italian for 'the sweetness of doing nothing'). 

 I have never done anything like that on a vacation.

 It was heavenly.

A favorite of Scott's, was sitting by the Boules Court, and watching the men play boules. They take it very seriously.  If you've ever seen Samantha Brown on the travel channel when she goes to Paris, on one episode, she plays boules with some really cute, elderly men...I hope you've seen the episode, it will make this clip a lot better if you have...

We spent a lot of time watching them...free entertainment... and I could tell, Scott was imagining himself doing exactly this, in this exact spot, in his old age.  I had to video on the side, and talk super softly, because they were really serious about the whole thing.

Here's another clip.  I won't point out the obviously hilarious double meaning in this clip... I think you'll get it all by yourself...it was accidental... I PROMISE!  But later that evening, I showed it to Scott, and as we listened to it, we went into hysterical fits of laughter.  
Hope you get a laugh too!

~Teri