DC Hotels & Lodging Paris Restaurants Travel: cherry blossoms DC Hotels & Lodging luxury DC hotels Paris Restaurant Restaurants The Fairfax at Embassy row The Jockey Club Travel Washington DC
by maribeth
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The Elegance of Paris in Our Nation’s Capital: The Fairfax at Embassy Row
Cherry Blossoms at the Jefferson Memorial
It’s been over a week that the mountain closed here in Telluride and the town has already slowed down to its sleepy off-season mode. Many people have hit the road in search of warmer climates. Others (like me) are using this quiet time to catch up on work that had been shelved during the busy winter season. Fortunately there’s still fun to be had nearby since I just returned from a long weekend of skiing at Beaver Creek and Snowmass. My final spring ski fling will be in Aspen over Easter.
Still I’m feeling the itch to visit cities such as Paris or Washington D.C., two great capitals that are especially resplendent this time of year. I’ve often been to Washington in (late) spring since it’s an easier trip than crossing the Atlantic; and in Paris I’ve lived through nearly a dozen printemps. Flowers bloom bountifully in April in both cities, making spring the perfect season for strolling vast boulevards while crisscrossing in and out of world-renowned museums. This year, due to the disasters in Japan, there was more talk than ever about D.C.’s cherry blossoms, great puffs of beauty that surely provoked more emotion than usual. (I haven’t seen the cherry blossoms in D.C. but I did experience them in all their splendor nearly two decades ago in Kyoto, and I remember them as heartbreakingly beautiful then.)
Both Paris and D.C. humble you year-round by their manicured landscapes and grand and glorious architecture. This stateliness may be considered distinctly Washingtonian or typiquement parisien. Or sometimes a little of both. (As most of us know, it was a Frenchman, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, appointed by President George Washington in 1791, who designed our capital city.) The history and tradition of Washington D.C. may be more recent than that of Paris but a visit to this glistening beacon along the Potomac still imbues you with the spirit of the past as well as the omnipotent force of the present.
