La Bambouseraie

As I stated earlier, we were able to visit La Bambouseraie near Anduze during Abigail's winter break. Jacqueline was gracious enough to invite us to her lovely house in Saint-Christol for a few days. She had Sonia's kids Julia (6 yrs old) and Rudy (4 years old) staying with her the week and she thought it'd be great for everyone if they had a chance to play together. Turns out it was great, they had a blast...were a bit of a challenge but a good time was had.

At the end of the weekend, after a weird and wicked windstorm which is quite unusual for the area had been beating down on us during our entire stay, Sunday the day of our departure was gorgeous. So we decided it was the moment to go see some bamboo. As you all know bamboo is my all time favorite tree (although it's really a grass). The bamboo forest on our hike in Hana is my favorite spot on Maui (my favorite spot on earth). It has been years since my eyes have seen real bamboo and it was so nice to get to see it again here in France of all places!

The sounds that these "trees" make is unforgettable when the breeze blows through them and the clank together...its musical and oh so peaceful. On top of this the leaves that also rustle and the sunlight that flickers in and out when you walk through a bamboo forest....really shows that nature does sing...we need only to listen.

This forest was planted by a guy back in the 1860s who though it'd be a good idea (I agree)...he also planted some sycamore trees, the biggest trees in the world (i.e. redwood trees) and they had some huge ones...this one here must have fallen in a storm and they just cut it into giant wedges and left it there. So I thought it could show the size of this tree by putting my model in the center of the trunk.

As we were getting ready to head back to Frejus on our way to the parking lot we spotted a laybrinth maze of bamboo and we couldn't resist giving it a try. We figured it was small and it wouldn't take much time to walk through it...but it was a bit more challenging than we had anticipated. It always amazes me that you can be so close and yet so far...we felt a lot like mice searching for the proverbial cheese.

Fun day!