We have always loved the Parks of Paris … posted a blog on this back in 2013, part of which is reproduced below … so when we saw that The Met in NYC had an exhibit titled “ Public Parks, Private Gardens – Paris to Provence ” we couldn’t resist. It is a wonderful glimpse inside many of the Parisienne places of solitude through paintings, illustrations, books and video. Paris is a wonderful walking city. Yes, the museums are fantastic, the shopping great and the people watching absolutely terrific, but the way to see the many faces of Paris is to take the metro to a place of interest, walk the neighborhood for hours and return to your room when "enough is enough" via the closest metro station. Then back out for dinner! At least that's our daily game plan when visiting great cities. Our favorite diversions on our trips to Paris were into the lovely, manicured old jardins of Paris. These parks always have interesting, formal layouts with gravelly wal

While in Richmond we took a tour of the Maymont Mansion . This gilded age estate is situated on 100 acres in the middle of Richmond. From the Maymont website:  During the Gilded Age of the late 1880s through the 1910s—the era of Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt —millionaires demonstrated their prosperity through their elaborate homes. Richmond-born financier James Dooley was among this new class in American society. His home, Maymont, stands today as a remarkably complete expression of Gilded Age luxury and opulence. Maymont was the 100-acre Victorian country estate of James Henry and Sallie May Dooley. In 1886, the Dooleys first viewed and purchased the rough pasture and field that would become Maymont. At the age of forty, with no children and the resources of her husband’s prosperity at her disposal, Sallie Dooley led the effort to transform the landscape into a showplace that would rival the lavish estates that were springing up throughout the count

The Beautiful James River The plantations along the James River offer some fantastic views of the river and surrounding areas, as well as several plantations that offer tours. During the Holidays some of the plantation homes are decorated in traditional colonial holiday themes ... except for the fact that they include a Christmas tree, which was not introduced to America from Germany until Victorian times. Unlike the antebellum plantation mansions of the deep south, these colonial buildings are seemingly much more modest. It is true, however, that they were luxury homes in the 1700s ... but times were different.  These estates entertained the truly privileged of their time. Presidents, generals, civic leaders all dined, danced and slept in these homes. We visited two of these historic estates ... the Shirley Plantation and the Berkeley Plantation. Shirley Plantation Shirley Plantation is Virginia’s first plantation, founded in 1613, after a royal land grant carved the