Jardin du Palais-Royal, Urban park in 1st arrondissement, Paris, France
The Jardin du Palais-Royal is a classical French garden in Paris's first arrondissement laid out with symmetrical paths, trimmed hedges, and fountains framed by colonnaded buildings. The southern section features 260 black and white striped columns by Daniel Buren that function as an outdoor art piece.
Cardinal Richelieu commissioned this garden in 1633, which later served as a royal residence before becoming open to the public during the French Revolution. It has since evolved into a public retreat at the heart of the city.
The garden's name comes from the Palais-Royal, whose arcaded galleries border it on all four sides: Montpensier to the west, Beaujolais to the north, Valois to the east and Jardin to the south. A plaque placed in the Galerie de Valois on 15 December 1934 by the Czechoslovak colony of France recalls volunteers who left on 22 August 1914 to fight alongside France.
The garden is open daily from sunrise to sunset and is easily reached from the Palais-Royal-Musée du Louvre metro station served by lines 1 and 7. Entry is free, and there are plenty of benches to sit on with areas of both shade and sun throughout.
The small bronze cannon was made in 1785 by Rousseau, a clockmaker with a shop in the Beaujolais gallery, and installed on the Paris meridian in 1786. A lens focused sunlight to fire it at noon from May to October, setting Parisian clocks. Its base reads Horas non numero nisi serenas. Since 2011 a pyrotechnician fires it, now only on Wednesdays at noon.
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