Played June 14, 2023
Reviewed by Mr. Tee
This course popped to the top of our list of courses to play when we planned our trip to Paris in 2023.
From Wikipedia:
The Parc floral de Paris is a public park and botanical garden located within the Bois de Vincennes in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. Created in 1969, the park remains the legacy of the international horticultural exposition, which was organised under the auspices of the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) and recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).[1] It is one of four botanical gardens in Paris, and is the site of major annual flower shows. The nearest metro station to the park is Chateau-de-Vincennes.
Courses with a sense of place and nod to their local surroundings are incredible on their own but a course highlighting one of the most incredible cities in the world? Yeah, we had to play! We figured the French got so many other things right like art, culture, and food that their take on mini golf had to be pretty great.
We arrived early in the day on yet another piping hot Paris day. We had time to explore the park since the mini golf didn’t open for a while. We had a chance to peruse this beautiful park and somehow The Pink Putter managed to bruise her tailbone on a super steep and fast slide on the playground but was fine enough to continue to take a couple of putts around a miniature version of Paris.
Rating
Of course, the French get it right with mini golf too! Not only is this course themed around the landmarks of Paris but the arrangement of the holes mimics the layout of the city centre. It’s a perfect course to visit either before or right after you’ve seen all the major sites like the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. The look of the course is consistent across all 18 holes with green turf, cement walls, raised white piping, and detailed white cement replicas of the major landmarks. There is a really fun and unique variety of gameplay that is both challenging and makes for very satisfying holes-in-one. I liked that a number of the holes had unconventional cups / finishing locations like in Acco Arena and Sacré-Cœur-themed holes. This course would have made it into our highest course ranking category if it weren’t for some of the especially challenging gameplay. The raised white metal piping is not very tall and the ball can easily hop over it and out of bounds. Some of the shoot-through environments in the landmarks don’t finish well and in some cases throw your ball into places where you can’t advance the ball easily towards the cup. A few of the cups seemed broken or removed and there was a bit of debris that in a few cases, impacted play. It’s too bad because with a few tweaks, this would be a perfect course. Despite the few issues, it’s still a destination course if you’re traveling to Paris and our favorite course in the city.
Note: Of the holes not in photographs, #13 was Pont-Neuf and #6 was a jump hole near another big and beautiful-looking building obstacle but I couldn’t place which landmark in Paris it was meant to represent.
Parc Floral De Paris Website – includes details on hours plus group and reduced pricing
- 18 holes. Par 50.
- Hours vary depending on the season
- Adult and Child over 12 years old 12€ | Children 12 and Under 8 €
- Overall, the park has a variety of amenities including food, playgrounds, parks, bicycles, escape game, treasure hunt, ping pong, and lots more
- The Parc is about an hour on the Metro from the Eifel Tower. It’s south and west of the city center
