I always love to see beautiful gardens, and especially beautiful gardens by the dozens all in one location. And I love afternoon tea. So when I found out about the amazing Huntington Gardens near Pasadena, I asked my mom to take me. But the tickets are pretty pricey. Add in afternoon tea (which is a must!) at their little tea room inside the gardens and a small family ends up paying $250+ for the day for garden viewing and tea (wow, right?!). And sadly that kind of money doesn’t grow on trees. At least not on trees outside the Huntington Gardens. BUT I was pleased to discover there is a free day each month, and you need to be on their website ready to click the free day tickets button right when they become available each month (for the following month) or they’ll be taken within 10 minutes. The free tickets are available on the 1st of each month at 9AM sharp. My Oma, mom, and my sisters and I scored free tickets and went on the last free day. Despite a little drizzle here and there, the gardens were spectacular, and I took lots of photos of beautiful flowers. And we had a chance to get a reservation at the tea room which was fun too. Not as “formal” as I would have expected for the price, but it certainly was good. The fact that it was an all you can eat buffet was nice for the picky eaters in the group. It would be a great place to have a birthday party with a few friends, and then do an undercover scavenger hunt 🙂 around the garden grounds!
http://www.huntington.org/WebAssets/Templates/content.aspx?id=844
