You can easily walk right past it without even noticing. Nestled along the Cours la Reine, just south of the Grand Palais, the Jardin de la Nouvelle-France offers a rare botanical pause in the heart of the 8th arrondissement. Created in 1900 by Jules Vacherot, the Exposition universelle’s chief gardener, it adopts the late-19th-century landscape garden ethos, where every element is meticulously arranged to lend the scene a natural, effortless look.
Here, the terrain gains some height and the path winds along the bends. A small rocky valley leads down to the water, bridges pace the stroll, and the vegetation gradually wraps the scene in green. Along the route, we also encounter The Poet's Dream, a marble sculpture by Alphonse de Moncel installed in 1910 in homage to Alfred de Musset. The garden has recently regained color thanks to renovations of its walkways and basin, the addition of new benches, and fresh plantings that blend lawn, roses, shrubs, climbing plants, perennials, and bulbs.
Its name references the New France, the former French territory in North America. Opened as the Garden of New France in 2010, the site keeps a number of nods to Canada: a bust of Jacques Cartier was installed there in 1934, a sugar maple planted in 1962, and a bust of Samuel de Champlain presented by Canada in 2004. A little whiff of the Atlantic under Parisian foliage.
The garden is part of the Jardins des Champs-Élysées and is free to visit. Just a few meters from the Grand Palais’s glasshouses, this pocket of greenery prioritizes calm in a neighborhood that’s always buzzing. And perhaps that’s precisely what gives it its charm.
Location
Garden of New France
Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt
75008 Paris 8
Route planner
Access
Metro lines 1 and 13 — Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau
Prices
Free
