The Botanic Garden, Paris:
DiaShows:
The Jardin des Plantes (daily: summer 7.30am–8pm; winter 8am–dusk; free; www.mnhn.fr; M° Austerlitz/Jussieu/Monge) was founded as a medicinal herb garden in 1626. It gradually evolved as Paris's botanical gardens and with hothouses, shady avenues of trees, lawns to sprawl on, museums and a zoo, it's a pleasant oasis in which to while away a few hours.
There's an entrance at the corner of rues Geoffroy-St-Hilaire and Buffon, alongside the museum shop selling wonderful books and postcards; other entrances are further north on the corner with rue Cuvier, the main gate on rue Cuvier itself, and on quai St-Bernard. If you enter by the rue Cuvier entrance, you'll get to see a fine cedar of Lebanon planted in 1734, raised from seed sent over from the Oxford Botanical Gardens, and a slice of an American sequoia more than 2000 years old.
In the nearby physics labs, Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896, and two years later the Curies discovered radium (Pierre ended his days under the wheels of a brewer's dray on rue Dauphine).
http://france-for-visitors.com/photo-gallery/paris/parks-and-gardens/jardin-des-plantes.html
