Gaia’s Gift

Garden Education and Tourism

School

 

 

 

Who

 

 


We regret, the 2005 class is closed and the program is under evaluation for next year.  If you would like to visit the gardens of France with a team from l’Ecole, and we highly recommend it!  It’s important that you contact us! 

school@gaias-gift.com

 

L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles

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Located near Paris in one of the historic gardens of Versailles, the school’s graduates and teachers are some of the most famous and talented landscape architects and garden historians in France.

The classrooms and offices are adjacent to Le Potager du Roi, which ensures ongoing educational opportunities with fruits and vegetables.  While Le Potager du Roi maintains its historical architecture, from the days of Louis XIV, it is also a modern experimental garden, testing new varieties and growing methods.

The school offers a four year degree program and continuing education classes in the historical, artistic and practical aspects of gardens in France.  The courses, traditionally for the French public, are normally taught in French.

At the request of Gaias Gift, the ENSP is developing courses in English, using its talented teachers, administrators and graduates to give us a truly unique educational experience.

 

 

Best of French Gardens

May 22 – 31, 2005

 

Highlights

 

§      Visits to Versailles Chateau, Petit Trianon, and Grand Trianon with Garden Historian Michel Baridon

§      Le Potager du Roi

§      Villandry

§      Garden and kitchen visit; dinner with Jean Bardet at Château Belmont in Tours

§      L’Haÿ les Roses, the “first rose garden”

§      Paris Museum of Natural History the rose garden and Le Jardin des Plantes

§      Spectacular Buttes Chaumont with garden historian Stéphanie de Courtois

§      Organic Farm near Versailles, tour with the owner, and the Versailles Market

§      Choice of lodging at the luxurious Sofitel or a convenient business hotel. 

§      Breakfast at your hotel, lunch and most dinners at the Sofitel and other fine Versailles and Paris restaurants (see the detailed itinerary)

 

Itinerary

 

Staff

 

Specific contributors may change with the itinerary, here is an introduction to a few of them; click on the link for more information:

 

Stéphanie de Courtois

Our Program Director, ENSP

Teacher, garden historian, editor and a published writer; has been responsible for the conservation of the historic Potager du Roi since 1996

Véronique Sidoli

Class Administrator, ENSP  Landscape Architect and responsible for continuing education courses in Versailles

Michel Baridon, ENSP

Professor Emeritus, University of Bourgogne.  Educator, historian of gardens and culture, he is particularly interested by the relationship between ideas and design.  His last book was on the gardens of Versailles

Antoine Jacobsohn, ENSP

His studies in Soil and Crop Culture at Cornell University and  in advanced Social Sciences in France have made him a leading speaker, writer and researcher in the history of food, horticulture and ancient cultures

Philippe Schuller, ENSP

Philippe brings a different perspective to our studies with a background in the Arts, Theatre and the production of public spectacles.  With deep ties in the Montreuil community, he works in many ways to preserve and revive the agricultural history of that place, including the traditional practice of marking apples.

 

 

Contact us school@gaias-gift.com

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