Montsouris

Parc Montsouris reveals itself through its sweeping, English-style landscape of sloping lawns, winding paths, and a central lake that catches the light. Created in the mid-nineteenth century by Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, this fifteen-hectare space was one of four major parks commissioned by Napoleon the Third to provide green lungs for the expanding city. It occupies what was once a landscape of granite quarries, a history that accounts for the park's varied terrain and sudden changes in elevation.