Parc Montsouris in an ethereal collage of silhouetted bole, fowl, and flora.
Beans, Baguettes, & Boulogne
While some smiles are forced, these gleaming pearly whites bespeak only sincere contentment. Wedged into a photogenic crevice of a tree-cum-tourist-attraction at the Jardin des Plantes, I lapped up the sunshine and let the intoxicating botanical fumes engulf my very being. Paris in spring is not overrated, my friends, nay indeed!
The serene meadow at the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil in which I quasi-napped alongside the daffodil patch. In this eudemonic spot my grass-imprinted hands were kissed by curlicues of vernal breeze, my mind coaxed into rare stillness.
Such idle woolgathering was rudely arrested by an anonymous man who woke me, asked for the name of an adjacent tree, and bluntly segued into asking me to dinner. I quickly rejected. As I bee-lined toward my waiting bicycle, I rued the man for shattering my fragile blanket of peace, my transitory token of relaxation in this Parisian urban overload.
View Larger As far as trees go, I’m of the opinion that this sinuously furcated specimen from the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil sweeps the lot of them.
Le Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil.
A garden of such dazzling beauty and bliss warrants at the very least a few contemplative phrases, but—alas!— three countries’ worth of bureaucratic headache has effected a slothfulness to permeate my every limb. Heck, the mere feat of correctly spelling “bureaucratic” strained my efforts.
This bed-confined creature instead offers in apologetic tribute: a Lazy Link©!
Parisian kiddos poke and prod their rented wooden sailboats across a nondescript Tuileries pond. As tepid gusts of wind billow in the multicolored sails, each vessel is gently coaxed to displace inertia; so too, the children’s grins are nudged to full spread.
For this meandering Parisian gadabout, such simple moments trump any and all touristic foofaraw.
