Cluny

My favorite garden in Paris is near the Cluny Museum, a circular garden of herbs set into a small square of urban property. Surrounding the herb garden is a circular stone path with benches here and there for resting. Along the perimeter are trees for shade and a few sculptures. This small circle-in-a-square garden is named for a mathematician.

In this small garden, herbs grow freely, tumbling over one another. Bees forage the blue flowers of the comfrey, and birds flit from tree to tree, chirping and cheering.


The garden is enclosed by a neighborhood in the Latin Quarter with elegant white buildings, and people from the neighborhood sit on benches as they talk and read.

The Cluny Museum itself has a garden in back, created in 2000, a contemporary garden in the medieval style, as the Musee de Cluny is also the National Museum of the Middle Ages.





In this garden a series of rectangular raised beds highlight the types of gardens in the middle ages. One garden is devoted to food plants commonly grown in medieval times, including cabbage, chard, peas, beans and onions.

Another garden is given to medicinal herbs from the middle ages, such as sage, hyssop, rue and chamomile.


The love garden is planted with scented carnations, roses and other sensual plants.

The celestial garden focuses on devotion to the Virgin Mary. Plants associated with the Virgin are lily, iris, columbine, roses, violets and daisies.

On my visit, the afternoon sun grew hot and I sat on a bench beside the celestial garden. Behind my head, a bird darted out from the vine growing thick and green on a trellis. Perhaps it was the medicinal herbs or the spiritual plants, but I felt at peace there.