Belgium, France and Holland

The metro was crowded as we made our way to the Luxembourg gardens, but I was fairly impressed with our ability to navigate the maps, ticket booths and turnstiles. It helped that I could ask some questions in French and generally people were friendly and helpful. When we arrived at the Rennes station, we saw that the street was lined with police cars and further down the street were fire trucks lined up to deploy if needed. This made Doug and I uneasy, but nothing seemed to be going on right now.
Using a map on my phone that had the European sim card, and then verifying our route with a friendly passerby, we found the Luxembourg gardens. Apparently Queen Maria de Medici, who came from Florence, grew tired of living in the Louvre. So she had the Luxembourg Palace built and surrounded by beautiful gardens and now we came to stroll through her Royal pathways.
The Luxembourg gardens are very popular with Parisians, who come there to play chess, walk, jog, read books and race small boats on the pond by pushing them with sticks. In the summer, it can be hard to find a spot to sit in this park, but this early in the season meant we could eat lunch at a chess table, and we could sit in the green metal lounge chairs near the brightly coloured gardens.
We took pictures of some of the statues that were found throughout the gardens, watched children riding the old fashioned merry-go-round, and then found the petanque courts. We sat in chairs surrounding the gravel courts and watched this game that reminded us of the bocce ball that is played on grass.
Petanque used metal balls that are about half the size of bocce balls, and players threw 3 balls each, but the idea of trying to get your balls closest to the centre smaller ball was the same as bocce. The players even had coat racks with hangers down the middle of the courts so jackets could be hung out of the way during the games. Nearby there were two small structures that had a hinged door on the side. As petanque started shutting down for the day, the players opened up the door on the structure to reveal rows of numbered boxes inside. In French, I asked a player about the boxes and he slid his out to show me that they store their 3 metal petanque balls in their box covered with the small cloth that they clean the balls with between throws. He told me that they play every day except in bad weather and I could see that these retired men and a few women spend most of their afternoons in good natured, yet serious competition at these beautiful courts.
Next we came to the beehive area of the park. The old fashioned wooden beehives were a buzz of activity in the shade of some trees. I had read that people can sign up to take actual beekeeping courses through the Luxembourg gardens and become legitimate beekeepers to oversee hives in other areas. So cool!
Finally we arrived at our preselected exit gate, only to find it locked! As we had approached the perimeter of the gardens, the sounds of sirens and explosive booms had become very loud. We realized that the police had locked the gates to prevent any protesters from harming the gardens. Luckily we found one of our petanque players heading home and he told us to follow him as he knew which gate was still open.
We made it safely back to the metro and rode the train to the Montparnasse station with no problems, but when we exited the station near our hotel, the streets were full of protestors and the edges of the demonstration were lined with police. Loud booms that sounded like bombs ricocheted throughout the square and made me feel very unsafe. Our friends seemed intrigued by the noise and commotion until I explained that the blasts were huge triggers for a retired police officer. While they were welcome to stay and watch, Doug and I needed to return to a quieter and safer atmosphere which we did.
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