Luxembourg Palace
A homesick queen built herself a corner of Florence in Paris — later a prison, then a Luftwaffe HQ, and today the French Senate.
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One facade carries the whole arc of French power: Marie de' Medici's 1615 palace, then a Revolution-era prison, the Directory's seat, Göring's WWII headquarters, and today the working Senate. The 24 Rubens canvases she commissioned for it now hang in the Louvre.
What to look for
- The deliberately Florentine facade — Marie de' Medici sent the architect Metezeau to Florence to draw the Palazzo Pitti in detail so the palace would resemble her native city.
- The 25-hectare green parterre rolling south from the palace — the Luxembourg Garden.
- The enclosed cour d'honneur behind the gates — the ceremonial forecourt of de Brosse's Louis XIII design.
It's the working Senate, so focus on the Luxembourg Garden to the south and the adjacent Musee du Luxembourg (in the former orangery) rather than the interior.
Luxembourg Palace is one of 33 sights worth the detour in Paris, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Paris pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Paris
- Eiffel TowerThe 300-metre iron tower Parisian artists petitioned against before it was even finished.
- Louvre MuseumThe world's most-visited museum lives inside a 12th-century fortress that became a royal palace.
- Notre-Dame de ParisThe spire fell on live TV in April 2019; since December 2024 you can walk back inside.
- Musée d'OrsayVan Gogh and Monet hung inside a Beaux-Arts station built for the Paris–Orléans railway.
- Champs-ÉlyséesA single 1.9-km straight line runs from the Concorde obelisk to the Arc de Triomphe — Paris's ceremonial spine on the Axe historique.
- Place de la BastilleThe prison that lit a revolution is gone — and the mob that stormed it on 14 July 1789 came for gunpowder, not the seven forgotten men inside.