Travel Notes: Reel Around the Fountain

Love the sound of trickling water on your French break? Check out these noteworthy fancy fountains

ROTONDE, AIX

Built in 1860, the Fontaine de la Rotonde features three sculptures representing justice, agriculture and the fine arts, and which face the Cours Mirabeau, Marseille and Avignon, respectively. Today this great fountain is considered the city center of Aix-en-Provence. In a previous article, we described it like this: “The Cours Mirabeau offers an impressive focal point with the magnificent Rotonde fountain at one end leading into a grand boulevard of double planted plane trees providing welcome shade for cafés on one side and for the former houses of the Aix nobility on the other.”

GIRONDINS, BORDEAUX

The dramatic Monument aux Girondins took eight years to build at the turn of the 20th century, and is a memorial to the executions of the Girondins by the Montagnards during the French Revolution. Along with the Miroir d’eau (Water Mirror), which is the world’s largest reflecting pool, this fountain is a must-visit in the city. Looking for more travel tips on Bordeaux? Check our article archive here.

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE

Paris’ largest public square — where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were famously executed during the French Revolution — hosts the Fontaines de la Concorde, a pair of decorative fountains built in 1840. One commemorates France’s maritime industry and the other commerce on France’s rivers. Twelve skilled sculptors worked on the statuary. Glittering in gold, these monumental fountains are oft described as the most beautiful in France.

From France Today magazine