Parc de Sceaux

The morning is rainy and the sky completely covered in clouds when I walk to the train station to travel to the south side of Paris.  A friend and I are meeting to try to catch the infamous Parc de Sceaux cherry blossoms at their peak moment.  The beauty of blossoms is fleeting, so we are proceeding with our plan even though the weather is bleak.  I'm a little anxious when I switch from one RER line to another, wondering if my ticket really carries me this far into the city.  Surely they wouldn't want me to leave the station for a new ticket when my connecting train was just beside the old one, though... 

I make it to my destination without any run-ins with SNCF agents and walk through a light downpour, listening to directions from Google maps through my earbuds.  I hope it stops raining long enough to get out my camera.  The park is much bigger than I expect, and I'm not quite sure which direction the cherry grove is in, so I start walking.  It's empty on this wet day.  Only the most dedicated runners are on the gravel paths.

I pass a singing robin.

The rain stops.

I follow a sign for les toilettes and discover the chateau.  It looks exactly as I imagine one mentioned in A Tale of Two Cities.

Finding the restrooms requires a lot of walking and the confusion of figuring out the way the French use arrows on signs.  French arrows never seem to be straightforward.  

I see a red squirrel.  A friend in England told me the North American squirrel had all but run the red squirrel off that island.  

It's spring, and this one is carrying her new baby.

I meet my friend, and we begin exploring  l'Orangerie.  The flowers are gorgeous.

The floppiness of the poppies is my favorite.  They're such a delicate flower.

We begin the long walk to the cherry trees.  This estate is truly vast!  I love that it is now a public park.  This kind of place is such a refuge from sirens and honking horns, and as Anne says, "There's so much scope for the imagination!"

The cherry grove is a truly magical place on this quiet misty morning, and we realize it's a gift to be there without the thousands of other Parisians that will flock to see the blossoms.

Don't you want to plant a cherry orchard now?  The twisty, knobby branches have such character; it's such a satisfyingly shaped tree.

Though they aren't at peak bloom, we walk through a grove of trees with white blossoms as we leave the park.

This outing is worth my completely soaked boots, that are apparently not waterproof.