bois de Boulogne

What it is

The Bois de Boulogne is a former royal hunting forest turned into an English-style public park, and at 846 hectares it covers more than double the area of New York's Central Park.

Napoleon III, who had admired London's Hyde Park during his years of exile in England, ordered the old forest landscaped into a public park between 1852 and 1858. Jean-Charles Alphand, working under Baron Haussmann's wider rebuilding of Paris, laid out its lakes, winding paths and plantations in the picturesque English style rather than the formal French garden tradition.

The wood sits on the western edge of the 16th arrondissement and has stayed one of the largest green spaces close to central Paris ever since.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

What's inside

Two boating lakes, a rose garden inside a 18th-century château, a children's amusement park, two racecourses and a contemporary art museum designed by Frank Gehry.

The Lac Inférieur and Lac Supérieur offer rowing boats and walking paths around their shores. The Château de Bagatelle, reportedly built in a sixty-four-day wager for the Comte d'Artois in 1777, holds the Roseraie de Bagatelle rose garden. The Jardin d'Acclimatation, a family garden and amusement park, has run since 1860. Longchamp and Auteuil racecourses host horse racing on the wood's southern edge, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, an angular glass-and-steel building by Frank Gehry, opened as a contemporary art museum in October 2014.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

How long to spend

Two hours covers a walk around one of the lakes and a look at the rose garden; a full day is easy to spend if the museum, the racecourse or the children's park are added in.

The wood is large enough that most visitors pick one or two of its attractions rather than attempt to see it all, and travel between the far-apart corners of the park — the lakes, Bagatelle and the racecourses sit well apart from each other — is itself part of the time budget, best planned before setting out rather than worked out on the walk itself.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Season and crowds

A weekend morning or a weekday afternoon rather than after dark, when much of the wood is unlit and quiet.

Spring is the strongest season for the rose garden at Bagatelle, which is timed to peak in late May and June. The lakes and open lawns are pleasant through summer, and the park's size means it rarely feels crowded even on a busy day, unlike the smaller central gardens.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Tickets

Free to enter and always open — the operator's own listing gives no closing hours across the week.

Individual attractions inside the wood set their own admission: the Jardin d'Acclimatation, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, boat hire on the lakes and racecourse entry are all separately ticketed and not covered by this page.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Getting there

Along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement, between Neuilly-sur-Seine and the Seine's western loop.

Porte Dauphine and Porte Maillot, both on Métro line 1, sit at the wood's eastern entrances; Les Sablons on the same line is closest to the Jardin d'Acclimatation. The wood is large enough that which entrance to use depends entirely on which part of it is the destination.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

What to watch out for

The wood's size and the way its paths wind through dense tree cover make some sections feel isolated, and parts of it have a long-standing reputation for being unsafe after dark — a daytime visit avoids the concern entirely.

Distances between attractions are longer than a first look at a map suggests; walking from the lakes to Bagatelle or to Longchamp is a real hike rather than a short stroll, and cycling or the park's own bus line cover ground faster.

Some of the wood's interior roads still carry car traffic, unusual for a Paris park of this scale, so pedestrians and cyclists share space with vehicles on certain routes rather than having the whole area to themselves.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Photography

The Lac Inférieur with its two wooded islands, shot from the boat-hire jetty at the western shore, is the wood's most photographed view.

The rose garden at Bagatelle rewards a visit timed to its late-May peak; outside that window the beds are far less dramatic. The Fondation Louis Vuitton's glass sails catch strong reflections in afternoon light and photograph well from the surrounding lawn, at a distance that takes in the whole structure.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Where it is

• 1 hour

  2 min walk · Paris 16e Arrondissement

  Jardin du Pré-Catelan

  • High
  • Nature site
• 1 hour

  2 min walk · Paris 16e Arrondissement

  Le Pré Catelan

  • High
  • Restaurant or café
• 45 min

  8 min walk · Paris 16e Arrondissement

  Fusillés de la cascade du bois de Boulogne

  • High
  • Historic monument

External links

• View on Wikidata