The Luxembourg Gardens are the great public park of the Left Bank — 23 hectares of formal French garden, gravel paths, ornamental ponds, and the Palais du Luxembourg (now the French Senate) around a central fountain where model boats have been sailed since the 19th century. The park is surrounded by the university quarter; its benches are perpetually occupied by students, old men playing chess, and parents watching children push their rental boats with wooden sticks.
The park has a particular quality in the late afternoon: the light is golden, the Medici Fountain is at its best, and the pace of the city slows to something approaching contemplation. Orchards and a beehive hide in the southern section. Free to enter.