Paris’s Secret Gardens
Six green escapes in the middle of the city, most tourists walk straight past.
Paris hides its gardens: on the prow of an island, on top of a railway viaduct, inside a royal herb garden, behind a bourgeois railing. This journey strings together six of them you can genuinely rest in, ordered so that you move east to west and end on a hillside with the best view in the city.
The first 2 stops are free to read below — the full journey, with practical tips for every stop, unlocks with the 7-day Pass.
The Jardin des Plantes, Paris’s oldest garden
Paris’s oldest public garden began in 1635 as the king’s medicinal herb garden, and it still behaves like a living museum: an alpine garden, a century-old cedar of Lebanon, the oldest tree in the city, and greenhouses full of tropical plants. You can cross it in ten minutes or lose a whole afternoon between the botanical school and the small zoo.
Tip · Enter from the riverside gate for the straight main alley — the locals’ route — and finish at the Alpine garden on the Rue Buffon side.
The Coulée verte, a garden on a viaduct
A stone’s throw from Bastille, a staircase at Avenue Daumesnil lifts you onto the Promenade plantée — a 4.5 km garden laid in the 1990s on the brick viaduct of the old Vincennes railway, years before New York borrowed the idea for its High Line. You walk above the shop fronts with the rooftops at eye level, and the flower beds change with every arrondissement.
Tip · The arches below the viaduct (Viaduc des Arts) hide craft workshops — good coffee stop at the start or the end of the walk.
🔒 4 more stops with the 7-day Pass
🔒 The Square du Vert-Galant, the prow of the island
The willow-shaded tip of the Île de la Cité, surrounded by the Seine.
Pont Neuf station →🔒 The Luxembourg’s hidden corners
The Medicis fountain, the orchard and the rose garden most visitors miss.
Odéon station →🔒 Parc Monceau, the garden of follies
An English folly garden with a pyramid and Roman columns in the 8th.
Monceau station →🔒 The Buttes-Chaumont, a mountain on a quarry
A 30-metre cliff, a waterfall and a temple on an old gypsum mine.
Buttes-Chaumont station →