Coastal Maine Botanical Garden – Boothbay, Maine
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Chihuly in the Garden
The other cool thing about visiting the Desert Botanical Garden is that it turns out they were having a Chihuly glass exhibit. One of the things I really like about the garden is how structural the cactus are, so having the glass in amongst them was a really interesting contrast. We never did
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Desert Botanical Garden – Phoenix, Arizona
So it wouldn’t be a trip to the Phoenix area for us if we didn’t stop by the Desert Botanical Garden. And can I just say how nice it was to see some green? One thing we did differently this time was check out the succulent collection. I don’t know how we’ve managed not to
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Versailles, Day 15
Versailles is an utterly amazing spectacle. It is grand on a scale that I’ve never experienced before. Standing there, looking out from the Palace to the Grand Canal is a glimpse into a very different world. Versailles is a bit of a trip outside of Paris proper. We took the RER train (basically the commuter
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Paris, Day 14
Our next morning, we had some shopping plans. We started out at the Les Halles metro stop, and managed to get completely turned around. Which ended up being a happy accident, as we ended up at the Centre Pompidou, which has a really neat fountain installation in its courtyard. Mistake corrected, we headed into the
Wiltshire, Day 11: Stourhead
Since we had our car until the end of the day Saturday, and had to clear out of the cottage by 10:00 AM, we figured we’d be silly not to stop off somewhere on the way back to London. Using my trusty National Trust handbook, I located Stourhead House and Garden, in Wiltshire (so not
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Cornwall, Day 10: The Lost Gardens of Heligan – The Other Gardens
Heligan isn’t just the kitchen gardens – it was an estate, so has plenty of ornamental gardens, and wild space. There’s a section called the Jungle that’s stuck inside a steep walled valley, so it’s got a warmer microclimate than the gardens near the house. During Victorian times, it was planted with tree ferns and
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Cornwall, Day 10: The Lost Gardens of Heligan – The Productive Gardens
The Lost Gardens of Heligan were another one of my must sees in Cornwall, after I’d run into a couple television shows about the gardens. The very basic back story: the garden staff all volunteered to go off and fight in WWI, and unfortunately, as in many other places, they didn’t come back. Fast forward
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Devon, Day 8: Buckland Abbey
For our next day out, we headed into Devon. Our first stop was Buckland Abbey, which was originally a Cisterician abbey, founded in the 13th century, until the Dissolution. In the 16th century, it was converted into a home, which came into the possession of Sir Frances Drake. The house has a lot of interesting
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