Last stop on the English road: The Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London.

Last day of the author's two week trip to England to visit family from London to Devon with stops in between. A glorious sunny day to see me off.

Aug 29, 2025

I had managed to publish two posts (here and here) during my two week trip to southern England to visit the sights and my wife’s family, with stops in London, Wiltshire, Bristol, and Devon. But the rest of the travelogue has had to wait until my return home to the United States. I will work backwards, starting with our visit to Kew Gardens the last day, a vast and magnificent place in the Richmond section of southwest London. I hope at least some readers have already been there, or will find some time in their lives to go.

The gardens were formally inaugurated in 1759, although, according to Wikipedia, they began to take shape as early as 1299 when King Edward I moved his court to a manor house in the area.

We visited on a bank holiday Monday, so the place was packed, but it is large enough that one can still get off the beaten path and find a bench or a patch of lawn to rest among the thousands of trees and other vegetation. A lot of science also goes on here behind the scenes, from which researchers all over the world benefit.

This was an important trip for me. Despite living for 30 years in Paris and making many dozens of trips to England during that time, I had not been back to the UK for about eight years. Moving back to the U.S., the pandemic, getting caught up in the affairs of my Hudson Valley village (where I publish a local online newspaper) have all kept me America-bound—and during what might be called the worst of times.

In an odd way, traveling to Europe, where I spent so many years of my life, got me back to my roots, or at least a place where I was partly successful in putting down roots.

More on that later. For now, a smattering of images, as a reminder to those lucky enough to have been here and an enticement to those who have not yet visited.