tea, gardens and priceless manuscripts -- oh my!

                                                                                                                           

A few weeks ago, I along with some of my poker pals, visited The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. Our main point of business was having a civilized afternoon tea in the Rose Garden Tea Room. But there is so much to see, two of us ended up staying all day!

We arrived at The Huntington just as it was opening and had reservations for tea right away. One thing to note about tea here is, even if all you are doing is having tea, you still need to pay admission ($20-23 depending on the day) to get onto the property. So once we waited in the line to get in, we rushed down the flower-paved paths to the Rose Garden Tea Room. 

Inside, once we were seated, a delish basket of scones was brought to our table and our tea orders were taken. After that, we were free to help ourselves to sandwiches, cheeses, fruit, pasta salads and petite desserts from the buffet in the middle of the room. The buffet makes this a little less formal than most afternoon teas with their three-tiered trays of food, but it didn't take away from its deliciousness. The chicken and salmon sandwiches were to die for! The pasta salads were yummy. And they had lemon bars... my second favorite pastry after scones. Did I mention they brought us a basket of those? And when we didn't finish everything in our basket, they brought us a little baggie to take them home in. Bonus points for that!

Basket-o-SCONES!

Cream cheese, egg salad, chicken salad
and salmon sandwiches

Chocolate mousse, strawberries, fruit tart and lemon bar - oh my!

Once we finished eating, we explored the grounds of The Huntington. This place is amazing! In addition to the many distinct gardens I photographed below, there is also a research Library, which houses rare books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, and other materials in the fields of British and American history. Many of these items are things you'd think would be in London, New York, or Washington... not San Marino, CA. Two prime examples: a copy of the Gutenberg bible and early editions of Shakespeare's works. 

The Art Collection also includes crazy-rare, historical things you'd never expect to see here, like The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment of the United States. For Pasadena architecture lovers, there is a large Greene & Greene Collection. There is also a huge collection of European and American art. A person could literally spend days looking at everything here. 

But it was a gorgeous spring day outside, and we had a lot of scones to work off, so we spent most of the day wandering the gardens... all of them! Here are just a few photos:

Rainbow of Flowers
Pretty snapdragons, lilies and more in one of the gardens on the way to the Rose Garden Tea Room.

Japanese Gardens

Duckie Island
This is under the bridge in the Japanese Garden. They even have their own little duck house :)

BONSAI!
One of the many, many Bonsai trees at the top of the Japanese Garden.

Lily Pond
Needs some more purple and blue to compete with my fave Monet lilies though ;)

Succulent Ice Plant  
I loved these so much (they ARE purple after all ;) that I went out and got some for my own garden. 

(Fat) LIZARDS!
There were tons of Lizards out sunning themselves that day, especially in the Desert Garden Exhibit.