"> Be the first to comment / by Carlo Galici / updated: 8 September 2020
Paris is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world also because it houses a huge number of works of art and monuments of high prestige and value. Visiting the French capital therefore requires precise planning and fast pace if you want to admire everything there is to see without having to stay there too long.
Every so often, however, between a museum and a cathedral, between a boat ride on the Seine and a photo shoot at the Eiffel Tower, it is useful to take a few minutes to relax.
In this case, you can also discover the green Paris, that of parks and recreational areas, where you can make a short stop before resuming your visit.
One of the most suggestive is certainly the Atlantic garden, for the particularity of being located right above the Montparnasse train station. In this sense, this area is the ideal place to spend a few moments of peace and tranquility while waiting for your train or moving around the city.
The park is positioned on a concrete square supported by twelve columns and has covered the station since 1994.
The designers managed to combine aesthetics and technical constraints by creating 130 openings (called “trémies”) all around the garden to allow ventilation and lighting of the underlying structure, where the quays are located. In some places the thickness of the layer of earth is about 20 cm and polystyrene is used to keep it raised.
The trees, on the other hand, are planted in huge stone pots with a soil thickness of at least 180 cm, the minimum possible for their growth.
The welcoming aspect of the park is essentially given by the presence of evergreen pines that go well with the lively plants in blue, mauve and white tones that recall the sea and the ocean. The Gare Montparnasse, in fact, in the past was a hub that connected Paris with the Atlantic coast and Brittany.
At the center of the garden is the beautiful fountain "Ile des Hespérides”, Dedicated to the sky and therefore built with meteorological instruments such as a thermometer, a weather vane, a rain gauge and an anemometer that measures the speed of the wind.
The arguments of Jardin Atlantique:
How to get to the Jardin Atlantique
Its privileged location right above the train station makes the park easily accessible by public transport. The Gare Montparnasse, in fact, is served by lines B and C of the Rer as well as by several underground lines such as 3, 6, 12 and 13. If you want you can also get there using the bus lines number 28, 58, 82, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95 or 96.
From the park you can enjoy the view of the majestic Montparnasse tour, a giant made of glass and iron about 210 meters high. After relaxing in the greenery, if you want, you can go right there and go up to the 56th floor with the fastest lift in Europe (38 meters per second) where you are welcomed by the Panoramic Observatory with a 360 degree view of the city. The view includes all the main monuments of Paris, such as the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower and you can, of course, also enjoy another viewpoint from above on the Jardin Atlantique.
Map: what to see nearby
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