Travel Theme: Green

At Where's My Backpack? this week, Ailsa celebrates springtime and St. Patrick's Day and challenges us to show all things green.  OK.  I'm in.  And I'm talkin' trees.At my mother's house, there is a great stretch of greenery that has all manner of plants.  But I really dig the big pine trees.  Normally I associate pine trees with Christmas (as do, probably, way too many of us) when their needles have turned darker and more hardy to survive the cold.  They're green, yes, in the winter, but still kind of stoic, and staid.  Hence it gladdens my heart to see a pine tree in spring when the clusters of new growth burst out.When in Tours, France...do what you can to get yourself to La Guinguette and go dancing by the river, under the giant willow tree.We climbed up the hill across the Arno in Florence and immediately decided that we were insanely jealous of the people who got to live in the gorgeous Tuscan countryside.When we were in Nags Head we went to the Elizabethan Gardens, a lovely, huge, multi-acred expanse of greenery and statues and rustic outbuildings.  It was a drizzly, grey day when we went there, and it was still astonishingly beautiful.  At one point we wandered onto the Great Lawn, where they've held all sorts of events.  Performances.  Weddings.  So the trees are decorated to make it even more like something out of a fairy tale.And finally.  A section of the Elizabethan Gardens borders the Atlantic Ocean.  All of the ocean-facing sides of the gorgeous sprawling live oak trees had turned green from constant exposure to the ocean's spray.What kind of green you got going on?Oh, and happy St. Patrick's Day!