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Differing garden styles feature in this park, including English and Japanese, though the major attraction is the huge rose garden, best seen in June.

This park-within-a-park is at the very centre of the Bois. Its lawns and wooded areas include a 200-year-old beech tree said to have the largest spread of branches in Paris.

The main children’s area of the Bois incorporates a small amusement park, a zoo with a farm and a pets’ corner, and a Herb Museum aimed especially at children.

Two long, thin lakes adjoin each other. The larger of the two, confusingly called Lac Inférieur (the other is Lac Supérieur) has boats for hire and a motor boat to take you to the islands.

This small circus puts on a new show each year, with jugglers, clowns, tightrope walkers and acrobats performing from November until March.

This stadium has been host to many football cup finals and rugby internationals and is home to the National Sports Museum.

At the same time as he re-designed central Paris (see The Second Empire), Baron Haussmann created the Bois de Boulogne. This chateau was given to Haussmann as a thank-you from Napoleon III.

Inside Pré Catelan park is a little garden planted with all the trees, flowers and herbs mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare. There’s an open-air theatre nearby.

This 19th-century garden has a series of greenhouses where ornamental hothouse plants are grown. In the centre is a palm house with tropical plants.

The Bois is home to two race courses. To the west is the Hippodrome de Longchamp, where flat racing takes place including the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (see Fête du Cinéma); in the east, the Hippodrome d’Auteuil holds steeplechases.