Favières
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This week I went to Favières, a town ~40km east of Paris, to visit the japanese garden there. While researching places to visit for this alphabet of Île-de-France project I came across this place and thought it would be nice to visit. You can easily do this in half a day. In Favières there isn’t much to see or do - there isn’t even a bakery (which is fairly unusual!). Surrounding the town, there’s a lot of countryside - field with crops and forests.
Compared to some of the other places I’ve visited for this project, there isn’t much to see there apart from the gardens. If you are looking for a place to visit for an entire day, Fontainebleau is worth visiting. I didn’t pick Fontainebleau for F because I’ve been there a few times and it’s a place that’s often suggested. I wanted to challenge myself to visit the smaller, less known places.
Getting there
I cycled there because that was the easiest option for me, and because I need to train before doing a 90km cycle in September. I can’t remember when I last did a 90km cycle, but I want to work on increasing my average speed - I know I can do the distance.
It is possible to get there with public transport. You can take the Transilien P or the RER E to Tournan and then take a bus. It should take around one hour, but that will also depend on how well the buses line up with the trains.
If you were to go by car, there is parking but it’s limited.
The trip
I had reserved a ticket for the 10am-12pm slot and ended up arriving at 10:30. I had initially planned on arriving at 10, but it was raining in the morning so I waited a little until it passed - and thankfully it did! In total, I spent just over an hour here and really enjoyed my time.
There was no one at the reception desk, so I just started visiting the gardens. I started with a walk through of the entire gardens. I wanted to see what there was before doing a slower walk through. The first thing I noticed was how peaceful it was. There were around five other people in the gardens, so I had loads of space to myself.
At the end of my first round, I spoke with the person working there (probably the owner? I’m not sure) and she checked my ticket. She explained a bit about the garden, about some of the symbols that are used throughout which I was able to observe on my second pass through. She had a lot of passion about the gardens, and I love to see people loving what they do.
At the entrance of the gardens, there are some koi in a pond. I didn’t know that koi in Japanese culture are a symbol of luck, prosperity, and good fortune. Throughout the gardens, there’s some quotes up, only in French, that have been translated from Japanese.
“rien de plus facile a dire ni de plus difficile a faire que de lâcher prise” (nothing is easier said, and harder to do than letting go) - Taneda Santoka
I spent some time sitting with my journal, it’s been a while since I last picked it up because I’ve been feeling overwhelmed (which is really when I should be journalling more, but I just couldn’t find the motivation). I sat on a rock to write. It felt peaceful, calming and reflective. I like paying attention to the smaller details, the sound of the wind among the trees, the sound of people walking on the pebbled paths and the water. There’s a water feature called a Shishi-odoshi that makes a rhythmic sound, it easily falls into background noise but I liked paying attention to it. The original idea behind the Shishi-odoshi was to scare away any animals that might otherwise eat the plants, but now they are used for aesthetic purposes.
There’s a building at the entrance, where some artwork was on display where you could also buy some pieces. There was a small terrance where you could get a drink.
I really enjoyed my morning. It was nice to spend the time alone with my thoughts, and I’m pleased I took my journal with me.
Recommendations
You need to reserve in advance, you can’t just show up.
I didn’t do the guided tour which I would have loved to do because I wasn’t able to reserve on time. I wanted to go when the weather was nice so didn’t want to risk booking weeks in advance. And because I’m a freelancer my work schedule can be unpredictable so I also wanted to leave my schedule open for work. I’m sure the guided tour would have gave a lot more information about the gardens.
What I spent
- entry into the gardens costs 7€
- transport would have been covered with my monthly Navigo (the monthly price is 86,40€ which covers the entire Île-de-France region)