Just off to the south-east of central Paris is the Bois de Vincennes, a beautiful and mostly wild park claimed by the Parisians to be four times larger than Hyde Park in London and three times larger than Central Park in New York. That, Retha and I figured, must mean that it’s just large enough for two South Africans to spend a whole day in. So we decided to go and see for ourselves.

A fairly quick trip on the metro the next morning, or at least what passes for morning when one’s on holiday, brought us first to the Château de Vincennes, a beautiful old castle. I convinced Retha to pose for a photo in the flowers. I quite like the result, but of course Retha’s finely honed artistic sensibilities are completely scandalised by my attempts at romantic photography.

After the flowery photo shoot at the castle we went on to the nearby flower garden, a beautiful yet mercilessly tended and pampered garden where we watched countless French children play on jungle gyms and climbing toys I would have killed for when I was 6. We spent some time there but soon became restless, and went off in search of the park proper.

We eventually found it. Miles of forest in all directions. The park is so large that when we got to the centre we could hardly hear any city noises. We spent hours and hours walking through the unfamiliar trees and plants. Every smallest detail was new to our eyes and we soon started playing around and getting more ridiculous every moment.

It must have been Paris getting to us. I swear it was.

Below is the photo I took of us at the castle.

Date: May 19, 2009
Tags: paris, retha, romantic, yashica

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