Taipei Botanical Gardens

A few weekends ago, I visited the Taipei Botanical Gardens (Nanhai Rd, maintained by the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute http://www.tfri.gov.tw/). The park was full of families of all ages walking, exercising, stretching, resting, eating, photographing plants and painting. With plenty of shady spots to rest, the park is well designed and an easy place to spend a couple of hours on a lazy weekend.

The park included a traditional building (the purpose of which I was unclear, but below is a painting on one of its walls), a large pond, and plenty of walking trails across little streams and bridges and through a variety of botanical genres. I even spotted a hothouse full of carniverous plants (no photo included below to prevent nightmares!)