Marché aux Fleurs | Paris

In Paris, I've found you have to be laser focused on your destination because of the infinite amount of stops along the way that entice you to entertain a detour... which is what happened the other day when I hopped off my bus stop at Cité, which is right around the corner from the Marché aux Fleurs. One glance of the petals being swept up turned into one photograph and then another, and there among the peonies, I almost forgot where I was headed to in the first place.

The distinctive glass pavilions of this beautiful flower market have been around since the 1900s, and because the Marche aux Fleurs is open everyday and sits in the middle of Paris on the l'île de la Cité, you're likely to pass by or around it at some point, so be warned in advance... it's hard to turn away from the vast array of colorful flowers and fragrant blooms. And on Sundays there's a Bird Market (Marché aux Oiseaux) that showcases a wonderfully rare variety of little birds!

 

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The Sweet Scent of Roses | Jardin des Plantes

I often pass this gated area just beyond the main entrance of Jardin des Plantes on my way to another area of the garden, and only ever stop to photograph the sculptures inside, always wishing I could jump the fence to get a better angle. I've never known it to be accessible to the public, until the other day when surprisingly two square gates, normally locked and sealed with a padlock, were wide open. I looked around to see if the jardinieres were momentarily inside watering the plants or tilling the grounds... but there was no one working on the flora at all, just a young man walking under the trellises, admiring the roses.

Roses! A jungle of roses that were never there on my previous visits. I stepped inside with a fluttering heart. And although I overheard someone say most of the blooms had already passed their peak, I couldn't disagree more. And so I spent the better half of the morning slowly taking in the 170 varieties of European roses.

Do visit if you can... but take heart, as soon as you begin to leave, the fragrance of a thousand roses pulls you back in, inviting you to remain one minute more, then another, followed by another...

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Dahlias: A Beautiful Consolation

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in...what more could [one] ask? 

A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars. ― Victor Hugo

The other day, I noticed these exquisite dahlias at the market up the street and couldn't resist taking two bunches home. The florist was quick to tell me that dahlias are extremely delicate and should be handled with great care, that I should change their water and clip their stems every day. Doing so would make them last longer, at least a week. So off I went (a half-hearted black thumb) with an armful of delicate beauty.

For the first couple days the dahlias lit up the room, each petal perky and bright,... but around day three I began to see browning. The disappointment that usually follows though, didn't. It was around the period of rentrée (back to school)... and their wilting petals seemed to parallel the ache that always comes this time of year - the end of summer and my boys heading off to school. So this time, I didn't blame my black thumb but accepted the fading dahlias as an act of consolation, mirroring the goodbye to the sweet summer days my boys and I spent together in our new city...

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Sunshine + Flora at Jardin des Plantes

It was one of those mornings when, after dropping my son off at school, I couldn't resist taking a small detour to Jardin des Plantes to watch the late winter sunlight flood the flora and skip along the double rows of plane trees.

Jardin des Plantes, an idyllic quiet space in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is France's main botanical garden created in 1626 by Louis XIII's physician as the royal medicinal herb garden (and opened to the public in 1640). It also houses La Ménagerie (a lovely small zoo that had my younger son riveted - we'll share these photos on another post), tropical greenhouses and magnificent museums. We plan on exploring and sharing more of this enchanting garden in the coming days...

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Happy New Year | Bonne Année + Bonne Santé

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.” ― Neil Gaiman

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