The flowering trees around my farmhouse are just now bursting into bloom, but I got a jump start on the spring petals last month when I took a quick weekend jaunt to Washington D.C. to meet up with my brother Porthos and see the famous cherry blossoms.
The sakura fun started as soon as I stepped off my train: a “Union Station in Bloom” pop-up market had taken over the concourse with all sorts of pretty things to browse. I picked up the lovely pale pink and teal crocheted jacket that I was wearing in my March reading vlog from the market! Porthos and I headed to The Dubliner Irish pub for lunch then walked towards the Capitol in quest of pink perianths.
Japan gave a pretty incredible and enduring gift: back in 1912, they sent the United States 3,000 sakura trees which now are planted all over the city. It was so exciting to spot billowy masses of pearly petals from a distance, to get closer and find every branch a densely-packed sword of sakura raised to the heavens or reaching out gracefully to passers-by. Saturday was overcast, and the cherry blossoms seemed distilled from the milky sky above! The trees in Lower Senate Park and around the U.S. Capitol were magical, and the wind was constantly filling the air with soft pink drifting snow.
One of the most spectacular places to see the D.C. cherry blossoms is the Tidal Basin. On Sunday, we took the first metro of the morning to the Smithsonian stop and found the golden sunrise still spilling down the National Mall as we walked past the Washington Monument towards the Jefferson Memorial. It was quite cold, but the sky could scarcely have been a more perfect shade of blue. Those slanting first rays of the day reflected off the ripping water and painted laughing, dancing shadows on the blossoms. Tree after tree after tree had its arms full of perfect miniature pink bouquets. Unsurprisingly, the paths under the cherry trees ringing the water were already quite busy, but everyone seemed so happy and called out of themselves by the beauty of the place. Sometimes taking photos can take you away from the moment, but at other times, paying attention to your surroundings and capturing an exquisite scene embeds you further in it, and that morning felt like the latter.
As you’ll see from the video, we followed up our sakura viewing with a sakura breakfast at the Waldorf Astoria. The gorgeous building was originally constructed in the 1890s as the Old Post Office. My brother Porthos had walked through the lobby previously and seen their cherry blossom tea, which is evidently served in birdcages! The breakfast menu at Peacock Alley was worth the splurge to sit in the elegant atrium, which was decked out in cherry blossoms, right down to the life-size fake tree in the center. I had “Cherry Blossom Hoe Cakes” with Maryland cherry compote, almond pistachio brittle, and blossom butter. They tasted very gourmet! The croissants that came with Porthos’s “Le Continental” were also top tier. Afterwards, we had time to pop in the National Gallery of Art to see some of the medieval religious art, a good way to prepare for Palm Sunday Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
As exciting as it is to have green leaves returning to the trees and warmer weather on the horizon, it’s always a little sad to see those first delicate blooms and days of spring pass away. I had such a lovely time that I’m already wondering if I can swing another cherry blossom visit to D.C. next spring!
D.C. in Bloom: Spring Travels