Parc Michel d'Ornano, Urban park in Caen, France.
Parc Michel d'Ornano is an urban park in Caen with wide open lawns and walkways bordered by linden trees throughout the grounds. The space spreads across several hectares with different areas designed for walking and leisure.
The park was laid out in the 18th century in the gardens of the Abbaye aux Dames, with a plan drawn in 1774 by François-Philippe Charpentier for abbess Madame de Belsunce. After abandonment in the early 19th century, the canonesses installed in 1823 had a belvedere mound raised in 1839. In 1983 the Basse-Normandie regional council bought the abbey and had Michel Bourne and Loïc Degroote redesign the park, which reopened in September 1992 as Parc Michel-d'Ornano.
The park's name honours Michel d'Ornano, who died in 1991, the year before it reopened in September 1992. Its paths follow a plan drawn in 1774 by François-Philippe Charpentier for abbess Madame de Belsunce. Since September 2020 four tall wooden seats called Nids, made by the Manœuvre collective with Station Mir, stand in the grounds.
The main entrance is on the route de Ouistreham, near the Hôpital Clemenceau, and a long linden-lined avenue runs from it across the park. The cedar on its mound is reached by a hedged path called the « Limaçon ». The labyrinth and alleys were classed as a protected site in 1932.
The cedar stands on a mound in the south of the park, reached by a hedge-lined path called "Limaçon". It was planted in 1849 to commemorate the massacres of Maronite Christians in Lebanon in 1845. The mound itself was raised in 1839 to form a belvedere.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,816 contributors worldwide.
