the rows of apple trees at Jardins Fruitiers de Laquenexy, France

…just outside of Metz, France is where I headed after landing in nearby Luxembourg – joining a reception that was part of the garden conference I have come to speak at tomorrow – but instead of spending time where I was supposed to (in the very elaborate new manicured gardens), I spent an hour wandering though the hypnotic corridors of the old apple and pear orchards, with every row, and sometimes every tree, offering a different exotic, unique, never-tasted-or-seen-by-me variety – that literaly made me tear up with with emotion as I tasted my way from tree to tree laden with just ripe fruit – and smoke wafting in the distance from a recent bonfire – oh, and parenthetically, I saw the new Centre Pompidou-Metz, but the pears were so much better. (more info on the gardens)