Jardin d'Acclimatation

The iron gates of the Jardin d'Acclimatation open onto a sprawling landscape defined by its curving, nineteenth-century pathways and erratic, leafy topography. Napoleon the Third commissioned this park in eighteen sixty to serve as a scientific garden for introducing exotic plants and animals to the French public. A few years after it opened, the city faced a brutal siege, forcing citizens to eat the garden’s ostriches, antelopes, and eventually, the famous elephants Castor and Pollux to survive the famine.