MOTHER NATURE WEARS MANY COLORS

BY JANET STEINBERG

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (ROYGBIV).  This mnemonic (pronounced nemonic because the first "m" is silent) is a memory device that will help you remember the colors of the rainbow… red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  However, Mother Nature needs no such device.  She wears, and paints, these colors around the world 365 days a year.  The following are some of her best renditions of those colors.

BUTCHART GARDENS located on Vancouver Island is near the city Victoria, BC, just off the mainland city of Vancouver.  Victoria is the city known as "The Sunshine City of Gardens". During the summer months, a blaze of blossoms in front of the magnificently domed BC Legislative Building, spell out the words: "Welcome To Victoria".  Roses bloom at Christmas and, in early March, tulips and daffodils are shipped all over Canada from this area.   There are flowers everywhere, but you haven't seen anything until you've seen Butchart Gardens.    

BUTCHART GARDENS

Seeing is believing at Butchart Gardens, and it's hard to believe that this explosion of blossoms and manicured lawns was once an abandoned limestone quarry.  Butchart's incredible gardens are rated among the most beautiful in the world.  Flowers in a rainbow of brilliant colors have transformed a rocky quarry into a magnificent Sunken Garden. Lacquered bridges cross tiny streams in the serene authentic Japanese Garden and just beyond the Star Pond is the formal Italian Garden.  In ever-changing patterns of movement and color, fountains jet to heights of eighty feet. Waterfalls cascade down steep walls and, on spring and fall evenings, the gardens sparkle under an extensive and spectacular illumination system.  Striking displays of floral splendor, accented by hundreds of hidden lights, transform the gardens into a veritable fairyland.

 CASCADING WATERFALLS AT BUTCHART GARDENS

A magical outing to the LAGUNA SAN RAFAEL GLACIER is one of the most breathtaking sites in South America…a kaleidoscope of the stunning artistry of Mother Nature.  This awesome wall of ice was a brilliant spectacle played out in hues of blue and white.  The thundering chunks of ice that calved into the lake might well have been crystal sculptures by Lalique, or a pate de verre gem executed by Daum Crystal.  Magnifico!

LAGUNA SAN RAPHAEL GLACIER

LA VALENCIA HOTEL’S colorful pink and green garden looks as if it were ripped off the page of a vibrant preppy Lilly Pulitzer clothing ad.  La Jolla, (pronounced la HOY-uh), meaning “the jewel” in Spanish, is a many-faceted, picture-postcard jewel hugging seven miles of California coastline some 25 minutes north of San Diego.  Legendary sunsets are said to be a daily occurrence.

LILLY PULITZER-LIKE GARDEN IN LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

Mother nature doesn’t need an ocean to show off her artistry.  A hotel pond, like the one at the HAMILTON PRINCESS BERMUDA, can do the job nicely. Ablaze in orange, the koi fish seemed to be enjoying their stay at the Hamilton Princess.  And why shouldn’t they?  This palatial “Pink Palace”, the reigning Grande Dame of Bermuda hotels, is Bermuda's oldest hotel (1885).  Named in honor of Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, the Hamilton Princess has been the hotel of choice for discriminating guests including Mark Twain, Sir Winston Churchill, and Prince Charles.

KOI AT THE HAMILTON PRINCESS BERMUDA

PEYTO LAKE, on the Icefields Parkway that links Jasper & Lake Louise, is, one of the most brilliantly colored lakes in the Rockies.  The extraordinary turquoise hue of this lake is due to fine particles of silt that comes from the run-off of melting glaciers.  This silt, called rock flour, remains suspended in the water and reflects the light.  Thus the water appears to be brightly colored.  Since the tint of the water varies with the amount of rock flour, the color of a lake can change during the season.  It depends on the melt rate of the source glacier.

TURQUOISE PEYTO LAKE

As shown in all of the above photos, Mother Nature wears her colors, and paints her pictures, in a myriad of colors.  But none are more universal, and more perfect, than when she yields her brush to paint a sunset.  She does this around the world every day, as the trailing edge of the Sun's disk disappears below the horizon.  The FORTALEZA BRAZIL SUNSET below creates intense orange, yellow and red colors of the sun and surrounding sky as it prepares to sink below the horizon.

PERFECT SUNSET IN FORTALEZA, BRAZIL

JANET STEINBERG is the winner of 43 national Travel Writing Awards and is a Travel Consultant with THE TRAVEL AUTHORITY in Mariemont, Ohio.