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Along the Natchez Trace

Friday, March 15, 2013

Parque de Los Principes

We have walked past this park several times but never stopped.  Yesterday we walked through it, just to see what it was like.  Not nearly as big nor as ornate as Parque Maria Luisa, Parque de Los Principes was still quite a lovely place.

You can see from the entry sign, it has lots of paths, a beautiful pond, lovely trees and landscaping.
It takes up a full city block.  We were there yesterday (Thursday) afternoon and there were quite a few people taking advantage of the beautiful weather we were having.  I think everyone is quite tired of rain.

This park has a very nice section....
A dog park...
Just for dogs (and their owners)!  We've seen lots of these in parks in the past few years and even though we don't have a dog, think it's a great place to allow dogs to run loose while they are still safe from traffic.    There were several pet owners taking advantage of this dog park today.

There are lovely ponds...  with a very graceful bridge allowing you to walk from one side to another...
You can see the city in the background...  still, the park is a lovely green oasis nestled just off busy streets.

It also has lovely landscaping..
This cactus garden has bird of paradise (the red near the pond) blooming.  You can see the fountain in the middle.

Everyone was enjoying the sun today!
Gee Mom, I want to get a little closer to the sun....

There was a family feeding the fish...
There were so many koi that we couldn't begin to count them.

The kids were having fun feeding them...
And along came this turtle to see check out the action...

We see this species of robin quite often...
It has a much larger repertoire of musical notes than the American robin...  I find myself looking high up in the trees when I hear its song.

There's been a LOT of rain lately... the park was quite muddy in places...
Here's Bill...  cleaning off his shoe after slipping in a particularly deep mud puddle.  It could have been worse...  nobody cleans up after their dogs here...  the sidewalks are like walking through a mine field.

There are some HUGE trees....
I don't know the species...  
Mostly, along the city streets there are orange trees and sycamores.  But in the parks, there are some trees that look very old.

Another view of the ponds...
We didn't see many species of birds..  mostly a lot of pigeons, or doves...
And, love is in the air. 
If you've ever heard the term "billing and cooing", you only have to watch an amorous male dove to get the meaning.

As you can tell, we love walking the city streets and finding these special places....
Bill took this photo of me as I was watching the turtles.
It's warmed up a lot this week...  no hat and no scarf!
By the way, I left my Canon EOS Rebel back in Texas...  my only camera is that little Canon Powershot SX230 I'm holding in my right hand.  It is small enough for a shirt pocket, but has a 14X optical zoom .  It has been a great camera for this trip. 

That's All For Today! 

15 comments:

  1. Love this post today! What a wonderful and beautiful park in the midst of all that hub-bub! So nice you could go enjoy it in some sunshine. We ahve a gloomy damp day here. Supposed to get freezing rain and new snow. Yay.

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    1. Thank you... hope your day of sunshine is coming soon!

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  2. We were surprised by the number of nice parks in Madrid and how much they were used. It wasn't uncommon to see families at the parks late into the evening. Safety didn't seem to be a problem in the parks and that impressed us a lot.

    I enjoy viewing your great pictures and stories about your Spanish training experience in Spain. Keep up the great work and continue to enjoy yourselves. Wish we were there.

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    1. Thank you... it's perfectly safe for anyone (single women etc) to be out at all ours of the night. It always surprises me to see little kids (and I mean even toddler age) out at 10 or 11:00 at night. Heck, I don't usually stay up that late! Yes, the parks are used a LOT!

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  3. Beautiful park and WOW, a black robin!! Never heard of black robins.

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    1. I'll have to go back a few weeks to look up the scientific name... but it's "turdus ??" which I think is hilarious. Same family as the American Robin - same mannerisms, but totally black.

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  4. Since you seem to look up a lot at the beautiful buildings, I'm surprised you haven't had a few disasters since no one picks up after their dogs.

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    1. I have my wonderful seeing-eye dog, Bill, looking out for me ;-)

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  5. Beautiful photos. Nice to see you enjoying some sunshine!

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  6. What a beautiful park. It is always nice to spend outdoors on pretty days. It seems like you guys must be getting close to finishing up there. Are you getting "hitch itch" yet?

    Mark

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  7. Having 4 rescue pups, I would certainly appreciate the nice doggie parks there! BUT, I cant believe poopy is not picked up.....that is horrible!

    Love the turtles sunning!

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  8. What a lovely little park to visit. I saw one of those black robins when I was in England on a tour. We were dropped off to tour "The Shambles" in York on our own. It was before my hip-replacement surgery and I was in a lot of pain so I chose to sit in a little park under a tree instead. A black robin came hopping by in a flower bed. It would stop and cock its head just like American robins. I really enjoyed watching it. In fact, I remember it so well, I think that memory compares to any others on that vacation!

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  9. Another lovely park! That bridge is beautiful and that old tree is amazing. I always appreciate dog parks but I cannot imagine that people don't clean up after their dogs. That's just sick. Even our dog parks here have bag stations and leaving dog poop on the ground anywhere - in a park or on the city streets - is jut not the thing to do. Gives dogs a bad name when actually it is the dog OWNERS who should be earning that bad name. Can you tell this is a hot button for me LOL??

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  10. Beautiful park and that is a Robin? how gorgeous is he/she... but no red breast... I would not like to step in dog potty ... that's the first negative I've seen... a big ew

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  11. Megan would love the dog park... she takes Ryder every day in San Diego! :-) And since Ryder only speaks Spanish, he'd love your dog park!

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