Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Garden), Paris (must see)

Centermost of all the Paris city parks, the Tuileries Garden forms part of the triumphal axis (the so-called "Grand Axe") stretching from La Défense plaza all the way to the Louvre. The garden is almost totally flat and has a circular fountain in the middle, which is most popular in summer.

Originally, this Italian Renaissance-style garden was created for Queen Catherine de Médici, who in the 16th century began construction of a palace just outside the western walls of the capital. The garden took the name of the tile factories (called "tuileries") that it replaced. First opened to the public in 1667, it became fully accessible only after the French Revolution.

In 1789, following the fall of the Bastille, King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, moved into the Tuileries Palace as a publicity stunt to get "closer to the people". Sadly, this stunt eventually produced the undesired effect and resulted in the royal family being locked up in the palace under house arrest. Three years later, the palace came under attack in what proved to be the defining moment of the Revolution. The French monarchy was abolished, and quite radically so, with the help of the then newly-invented guillotine installed in the nearby Concorde Square. The last words of the king rising to the scaffold were: "Gentlemen, I am innocent of everything of which I am accused. I hope that my blood may cement the good fortune of the French."

In the 19th century, Napoleon merged the Tuileries with the Louvre in a bid to create one huge super-palace complex. The project was barely completed when the bloody uprising of the Paris Commune in 1871 saw the former royal Tuileries Palace set on fire and completely destroyed. But the palace garden survived and to date retains the general outline of its original master plan.

In the 1990s, the landscape was renewed as part of the Grand Louvre project. Now free to access, the park is an oasis of calm amid the bustle of Paris. At visitors' disposal are a good number of green chairs to sit on and enjoy ice cream or drinks, plus a pond with small rented boats, from which one can enjoy a marvelous view of the Eiffel Tower or simply unwind to the chirp of the local birds.