Kew Gardens

I couldn't believe what a over-hyped dump The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew were.  It was a sad smudge of earth in the middle of London where happiness went to die.  Why don't you just go to a landfill and paw through the garbage and make the baby jesus cry in the process, and then go stand in line at the DMV for the rest of your life.  

Kidding, kidding.  It's a fantastic place to see.  

It's impressively sprawling, with gorgeous Victorian greenhouses dotting the parks.  I walked all day and barely saw half of it.  Brits take their gardens seriously, and to put a UNESCO stamp on this place isn't unwarranted.   

It's also one of those places that you could be entertained there year-round.  Although it was stunning in springtime, there is enough indoors that you could cheer yourself in the middle of January.  While I have been to plenty of gardens before, I don't think I have seen one quite so ambitious with so many varieties of plants.  As an amateur but passionate vegetable gardener, I can't even fathom the care that would go into so many landscapes and micro-climates.  I mean, it doesn't get as cold here as it does on the East Coast of the US, but it also doesn't get as hot, and it's quite damp.     

Being springtime, it was a bit crowded around the main gates and in some of the houses, but it's so big that it was easy to find a quiet corner: a pathway of rhododendrons, a Japanese garden and Minka house, ponds and groves and mature copse of beautiful old trees.

It wasn't exactly warm or sunny the day I visited, so it was nice to duck into the various greenhouses.  Rooms filled with delicate Orchids, palms and cactus were a nice break from the slightly dreary day.   

There was a skywalk around some tall old trees where you could get a good vantage point on some escaped parakeets.

Like New York and San Francisco, there is a booming population of tropical birds here.  It's hard to miss them as when they gather, their squawks are about as subtle and charming as a gathering of bagpipe players, but they are quite pretty. 

Another subtle resident:

In true Victorian style, they had peacocks roaming the gardens.  They seemed quite happy to shake out their plumage and win the title of the most absurd creatures.

Happily, the skies didn't open until I was contemplating an exit anyway.  They did have one of the most amazing and inspirational gift shops I've ever encountered.  If you are into gardening, it would be hard to escape unscathed.  

St Cloud

I totally forgot about these pictures from...October maybe? No wait, it was mid-September. Anyway, for the big open house weekend they had in Paris/France, I headed out to the 'burbs to the Parc St Cloud. They have spectacular fountains that they only run on special occasions like this, and only for an hour! So it was really kind of posh.

Yeah, that's right. They are real. Now leave me to my sheaths of wheat.

But it's a lovely André Le Nôtre garden to explore, filled with sprawling lawns and orderly lines of trees and hidden sunken canals and ponds- it's huge. If you keep walking, you would eventually hit Versailles.

There used to be a huge chateau here that was destroyed during the Prussian war, so now it's just a park. They have the Rock the Seine concert here every summer and you can take the metro out to the last stop to get here.

For an hour on this particular Sunday, the fountains made magic.

St Germain en Laye

Back in Paris, I am trying desperately to see and do absolutely everything and anything while I still have daylight and decent weather and time to spend here.

Sigh.

Probably the easiest Chateau to get to outside of Paris is St Germain en Laye. It sits upon the RER A station and you just have to cross the street to get to it.

The main appeal here being the remnants of a grand André Le Nôtre garden, views of Paris, and the archeological museum that resides in the chateau. Which, wasn't much really.

It was pretty basic, and the fact the the security guards seemed genuinely surprised to see me was telling. The place was empty.

They did have some kind of cool pieces of art on display, especially in the gardens.

It was quite warm the day I ventured out, and it seems like there are a lot of schools nearby, as there were crowds of teenagers hanging out on the lawns. Picnics were had, along with cigarettes over open books, and the occasional entanglement of limbs.

There's just something so charming about a vineyard with a view of the eiffel tower.

The gardens are well-maintained, but at one point the town took a huge chunk of them away to expand and build a road, so they used to be much grander.

All and all, not the most exciting place to check out, but if you have the time and inclination to wander a garden in the 'burbs, you can't go wrong.