Jardin Rosa Mir
Shell-encrusted grotto garden built by hand behind housing-block walls, once nearly lost to developers.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Jardin Rosa Mir in Lyon follows Jules Senis, a Spanish bricklayer who fled Franco's Spain and, facing a throat cancer diagnosis in the early 1950s, made a hospital-bed vow to his mother if he lived. It traces the twenty-five years he spent laying stone, shell and mortar behind these walls by hand, gathering oyster and scallop shells from Lyon's restaurants and coral and stones friends brought home from their travels. Look left as you enter for a small shrine to the Virgin Mary, set on a rocky pedestal and ringed in shells.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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