Great gardens: ...In Vegas??

Okay so I debated on whether to include this or not.  Because honestly, it's Vegas, this strange sprout of glittery, gaudy, expensive things in the middle of the desert (I am referring to the Strip, of course, and totally ignoring the fact that it is also a city that normal people live in beyond the Strip).... is there anything natural about Vegas at all?  Plus, everyone who's been in LA for some amount of time has been to Vegas at least once, twice, maybe too many times for those bachelorettes, celebratory trips, and weekends away.

But every time I go, I seek out this little beautiful oasis of freshness that is the "Conservatory and Botanical Gardens" of the Bellagio because I love flowers and they do flowers pretty well.  Is it natural?  No.  But beautiful and worth seeing?  Definitely.

As you walk through the lobby, you'll see the Chihuly glass above along with some elaborate floral centerpieces.

And then you'll make your way into the atrium straight ahead -- follow your nose!  In contrast to most of cigarette-smelly hotel/casino interiors, this room is very fragrant and fresh!

On this visit, there were "fields" of tulips, foxglove, and chrysanthemums, among other flowers...

Also on view was a greenhouse with butterflies.

Lovely!  Unfortunately because of all of the crowds, this was the widest angle shot I could get:

But if you look online, you'll also see that the gardens are very lovely during the day and the exhibit changes throughout the year.

Christmas!  (photo credit below)

Chinese New Year!  (photo credit below)

(Above photo credits: Creativitywindow and vitalvegas)

Love it or hate it -- if you are like most, you probably love-hate Vegas anyway -- the flowers are quite pretty.  And if you find yourself in Vegas this summer looking to escape the heat, noise, or bad odors, make a little side trip to this unnatural botanical oasis.

Here is the official website.  They are open 24/7 almost all days of the year, but if you look on their website, there are a few days between exhibits without an exhibit formally on display, presumably because they have to set up all those tightly packed flowers.

Since we're talking about guilty pleasures, this aside is another one of mine (boy bands -- I was a tween/teen in the 90s and will probably never grow out of them)...  Rixton "Me and My Broken Heart" 

Very catchy.  Aren't they always? :)  Have a good week!

LA Tourist for a Day!

This week, I had the great pleasure of a visit from one of my Dutch cousins who currently lives in Switzerland.  This being his first visit to LA, naturally I had to show him the sights!

Right before eating one of LA's best burgers at Plan Check

We did quite a bit...  we hit Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Venice all in one day.  And along the way, I got to revisit some of my favorite places.  

His personal favorite spot from the day was the Getty Villa (good choice!).  Originally, we had intended to go to the Getty Museum, but discovered at the last minute it was closed, and being fortunate enough to get tickets (they are free) over the phone, we instead went to the Getty Villa once again which did not disappoint.

I love getting LA's best spots all to myself!

You may remember the Getty Villa from a previous post.  That visit was in July.  Coming in the winter was nice... less tourists and different flowers.  While most of the herb garden was in regeneration mode, there were quite a few bulb flowers in bloom as well as hollyhocks which normally bloom mid-summer.  I guess winter in LA is like spring everywhere else.  Given the polar vortex situation on the east coast, I am not sad about lacking seasons.

Bulbs

I think this is a multi-petaled narcissus

Daffodil enjoying the sun

Hollyhocks

The feeeeesh

And of course there was some art too.  This is one of my favorite pieces there.

It is a statue that was submerged in the ocean for many years, such that part of it had barnacles and sea creatures growing all over it while the rest of it is smooth and preserved.

After the Getty Villa, we continued up PCH to Point Dume for some pretty vistas. 

I first visited Point Dume several years ago when a few surf buddies very well-versed in the LA area surf options and I went on a hunt for waves.  We stopped at pretty much every surf spot in LA north of Santa Monica (there are a lot).  This is by far the most breathtaking.  And it is one of my favorite spots in the LA area.  We actually took some of our engagement photos here.  Later in the year, all the brush that covers this little nature preserve will burst into bloom with yellow flowers.  People tend to think of LA as gross and covered with traffic (it can be), but if you know where to look, LA is really beautiful!

I could watch surfers all day forever

Well, I don't know if you've seen the new iPad Air commercial, but it quotes Walt Whitman's poetry.  The version I have seen on TV quotes only the last portion.  I find it slightly presumptuous to suggest that the iPad Air will really change your life so dramatically, but such is advertising.  And at the end of the day, I really like the commercial because 1) it's quite beautiful and 2) the poem, with which I had not been previously familiar, is amazing.

O Me! O Life!

BY WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Here is a link to the full-length commercial.  And while you're pondering that, here is one more thought:  John Wayne got to leave a permanent mark on the world (in wet concrete at Mann's Chinese theatre), and it was a fist bump.

How awesome is that?  What will your verse be, indeed.

Great Gardens: Getty Villa!

Well, my vacation has finally come to an end.  I'm not too sad about it since I was turning into a useless lump (let's be clear... a useless happy lump) and it is, oddly enough, kind of nice to be back in the hospital seeing patients again.  That's not to say that I didn't have the greatest time with my sister while she was here with the big added bonus of finally meeting her new boyfriend who is a born and bred New Yorker.  Visitors from other great cities (NYC is great) have a tendency to be somewhat biased against LA for some reason.  Is the smog? the traffic? the gang violence? Skid Row?  Um, maybe...  So how to go about showing someone from another great city that LA is quite great too?  

The New Yorkers in question: Andrea (converted NY-er) & Will.  And their horrified new friend...

Take them to places like the Getty Villa!  (Among other things like eating lots of delicious burgers).

View of the Villa from the Outer Peristyle

For those of you new to this Getty business, J. Paul Getty was a very rich man who built two namesake museums in LA.  One of them ("The Getty Center"), off the 405 near Westwood, is a famous architectural structure with a wide range of art, mostly European and rotating special exhibits.  It also has a lovely garden in the back and because it sits way up on a hill, has a great view of Los Angeles and, on a clear day, the ocean.  This one is fairly well known, and I personally have been there lots of times.

The Getty Villa is less well known and frequented, mostly I think because they require tickets.  These tickets are free and easy to obtain online (click and print, basically), but they require advanced planning since there are a set number and Angelenos are non-commital and all.  The Getty Villa is in Malibu (actually, technically the Palisades), off PCH just north of Sunset, that wonderful little beginners' surf spot.  It is built to resemble an ancient Roman villa, and in keeping with the theme, the art is all ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan.  Even after being in LA for 12 years now, this past week was my first time visiting -- I never had tickets!

Naked baby vintners on a sarcophagus

Let me tell you, it was amazing!  I loved it!  Awesome ancient Greek/Roman art aside -- which let's be honest is pretty fascinating even to the fairly history-indifferent folks -- the gardens themselves are such a calming place to be.  The exact type of place that makes you forget all the smog, highways, and other LA downers, whether you live here or not.

So without further ado...  more pictures!

Happy New Yorkers in the herb garden

Well-manicured edges

That is a terribly cute deer

Inner Peristyle... look at that great use of foliage!

Nice shoes, Hermes!

My favorite touchable plant: Lambs Ear

Is this not relaxing???!

My recommendation is that you spend at least a solid half day there, especially if you like art.  Despite the apparent small size of the museum, there is a lot of art packed in there and after visiting the gardens, we did not even make it through the whole museum.  

As mentioned before, tickets are free.  Parking is $15 and they have a nice little cafe with decent reasonably priced food.  I think you will like it!

While I'm still dreaming of my vacation, here's the track of the day, by the lovely Rodrigo y Gabriela.  I have mini-crushes on them both and their mad guitar skills.  I saw them last year at the Bowl and again this year with my sister...  we love them!

Great gardens: Villa Cimbrone!

The last 10 days or so, I've been on an "elective" schedule, which basically means that you choose whatever learning related activity you would like to do.  I have made it a point to do electives that are useful but doable from home.  What I have re-discovered on this elective schedule is that I am also terrible at working from home.  I would be a terrible housewife or work-from-home entrepreneur.  How do you do it, all you people who work from home??  I mostly sit at home uselessly and then start to feel despondent about my uselessness and then when my hard-working husband gets home, I bemoan my boredom and despondency about such boredom, all the while feeling more and more anxious about the pile of work that I have not yet done. Poor husband.  Fortunately, tomorrow, I will actually be going to work (I cannot believe I am saying that) and bringing home some bacon too.

Today, instead of doing my work, I posted vacation photos on facebook, a task that took no less than 2hrs (I love-hate facebook).  And in doing so, I got to look at all my lovely vacation photos again, including the ones from the lovely Villa Cimbrone and its outstanding gardens, located in Ravello, Italy which is a town along the Amalfi Coast.

This seriously gorgeous Villa belonged to a string of "enormously wealthy and influential" Italian families starting the 11th century, was abandoned for awhile, and then rediscovered by an Englishman who overcame his depression over his wife's death by living here and restoring it.  As such, it is, according to the guide pamphlet, a "happy combination of traditional English and Italian landscaped gardens."

As a patio-bound container gardener, I personally love the Italian use of containers within their gardens.  This was something I saw throughout our travels in Italy -- enthusiastic container gardening on balconies, roofs, and within gardens!

They also accessorize their garden well with statues, fountains, and arches.  This is in contrast to the Dutch gardens I saw, which primarily use well-manicured lines of beautiful flowers and foliage.

Lastly, the Villa Cimbrone makes pretty nice use of the fact that it sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  This is called the Terrace of the Infinity and oh my, was it gorgeous!

Nowadays, the villa operates as a hotel and event site.  It is available for tours of the garden for a nominal fee, for overnight stay for a much much larger fee,  and if you're extremely wealthy, then you can even get married there.  If interested, here is the website.  

Oh Ravello...  one day, I hope to be back!

Great gardens: Keukenhof!

The Keukenhof is heavenly.  I purposely saved going to this place for my 30th birthday because I was really looking forward to it, and it was everything I had hoped and dreamed.  I will let the pictures do the talking.

Tulip fields adjacent:

And at the Keukenhof:

 

In case you couldn't guess, the red tulip background is also from the Keukenhof.  Those were my favorites -- bright red tulips about the size of little melons!

Now, should you ever want to visit, the Keukenhof gardens are in Lisse, The Netherlands, they are open for about 2 months in the spring only, and this is their website.  

Beautiful, isn't it!  "Hup, hup, hoera" for Dutch flowers!