Treasure #1 - Parc de Sceaux

As mentioned in my last post, Brittany and I came across the beautiful, calming Parc de Sceaux on our journey to the opera, Madame Butterfly. Here are some photographs to convey its beauty. Please note, many of these were captured in a rush as we were rushing to the show to make the last admittance at 9:15 PM!

 A cute little running path we found on our two hour excursion to the Chateau

 Finally reaching the Chateau

Breath taking sunset looking out from the Chateau

 The beautiful Madame Butterfly set

Another image (stolen from the internet) of the parc

    Although Paris contains many beautiful parks and gardens, this has definitely been one of my favorites next to the chateau de chantilly. I particularly enjoy the gardens in which there are the least number of tourists (and people, for that matter), the most serene sounds of water flowing, and large ponds/ moats embedded in the perfectly groomed greenery.

      Here's some history on the chateau that the park is centered around. The original chateau, demolished during the Revolution, was built by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the minister of finance to Louis XIV and purchased by Louis' illegitimate son, the duke of Maine in 1699.  The present château, rebuilt 1856-62 in a Louis XIII style, is now the museum of Île-de-France open for visits, which I have heard great things about. I would love to explore the museum and have a Parisian style picnic in the park.

     In English, the French word "sceaux" primarily translates to "seal" and "sue" in the searches I've done. I've also found synonyms to be: stamps, marks, sealings, closes, impressions, markings, as well as prosecute, litigate, request, beg, and process.

    I consider this park my first treasure in Paris because here, although lost for a very long time, I was still soothed by the scenery and families/ friends enjoying themselves around me. The first group we asked for directions went above and beyond in directing us in the correct direction after first telling us we must go back to the Paris opera house for the opera. One of the men analyzed our ticket, realized we were indeed in the correct park for our show, and then he searched the park for service to call the help line on my ticket - which we would have been unable to do on our own as he was talking for a while in French receiving what seemed to be very confusing directions. We we're then on our way after a few "au revoir" and "merci"s.

     After thoroughly enjoying the show outside ("plein aire"), we searched eagerly for the metro nearest to the chateau as we were definitely not going to walk back around the massive pond at 12:15 AM in the pitch black night. We followed a few masses of people leaving the play, assuming they were too on their way to the RER train to return to Paris, but they soon dwindled away in the night (probably to their cars), and we were lost without any direction in a completely foreign city. We decided our luck with asking for help was lighting up, so we asked a few people "metro?" (Thank God that it's such a universal word here in Paris!!) and a little old couple piped up and eagerly led us into the night. They even showed us a few famous sites of Sceaux along the way, such as the first cement building in France, although it took them a while to realize we didn't speak French after we didn't respond to their lecture with more than a nod. Luckily, they knew a little English. We finally reached the metro after a 20 minute walk down numerous streets of dark alleyways to find that the RER and metro had already stopped running!! Thankfully, the couple was still eager to help us and led us to the infamous night bus and we were able to make it home by 2:30 AM, which was much sooner than we would have been able to make it on our own! Once again, the Parisians surprise me to their eagerness to help out foreigners in need. Realizing how much a foreigner struggles lacking the sense of a city and the local tongue, will definitely push me to help out those I see struggling back in America and hopefully I'll even be able to help out others here once I get a greater jist of things!

     Also, I really appreciated having the opportunity to see a famous opera in France. The opera was sung in Italian, but the subtitles on the screen were in French. Between the little French and Italian I've picked up this past year and the beautiful music played I was able to follow the story line without much struggle. I think it's wonderful how we are able to understand something merely based off of what we see and the change in tone and pitch of the instruments and opera singers. Music is such a universal language and this experience really made me appreciate it more.