PARC DU CHARMOIS

Erected in the heart of Vandoeuvre, the Domaine du Charmois and its three-hectare park are one of the jewels in the town's crown. Surrounded by high walls, the Parc du Charmois is in the tradition of late 19th-century bourgeois parks. The park's "English-style" design, with its winding paths, is intended to create the illusion of wilderness. With its rare tree species, monumental flowerbeds, stream and elegant spillway basin, it's a delightful place to stroll.

Declared a free refuge by the French League for the Protection of Birds, it is home to dozens of species, including blackbirds, bullfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, nuthatches, creepers, green woodpeckers and spotted woodpeckers.
A small curiosity: an authentic English telephone booth is installed in the park. It was acquired by the City of Vandoeuvre from the former Nancy Telecom Museum, in a nod to its twinning with England.

In the middle of the park is the Domaine du Charmois, a former private residence probably built by Désiré Bourgon, a member of the Ecole de Nancy, on the site of an earlier château built in 1725 by Claude Joseph Gilles dit le Provençal (painter to Stanislas) and destroyed in 1895. Today, it is a venue for seminars, conferences, exhibitions, cocktail parties, etc. Next door, the Charmois farmhouse has been converted into a municipal hall.

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