Since spring is coming up very soon by next month, what better way than to tell you about a place that I believe would make a perfect visit this spring OR summer. I went to this park in Staten Island, New York during the summer with my friends that was almost too magical to not see and overall beautiful. The Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden or also called Sailors’ Snug Harbor is a combination of environmental science, history, architecture, and the arts that come together to make this beautiful place. It was once the home for aged sailors and this place has a historical background to it as it was built around 1831. Be ready for this post as I’m ready to show you a lot of wonderful pictures I took within this day.
When my friends, my boyfriend, and I arrived here, the first thing we saw were old homes lined up. Those could’ve been the homes of sailors back then. We first went to check out the closest walk to us which was this garden with a small man-made pond and a gazebo bench surrounded by pretty flowers.
We saw beautiful flowers ranging from roses to peonies. The walk through near the flowers were kind of scary because there were bees buzzing around everywhere. We also saw a man-made pond with a statue of a duck.
It was a beautiful small part of the whole park. There are actually more gardens that we actually witnessed more through this adventure.
We then made our way to go to the greenhouse. It was unfortunately closed at the time but there was a cool walkway where you can see more plants enclosed with fences.
We also saw more flowers around us as we walked next to this area. We passed by some small little homes too.
Within this area that we had passed by adjacent to the walkway in the fences, we saw picnic tables with a designed art on the tables that spread a really important message about bullying.
Afterwards, we walked to this walkway that had vines all intertwined to create a tunnel. We actually saw there was a camera guy and an actor that was there to do some work so we decided not to disrupt their production and we did not walk to the end of it.
We then arrived near the New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden. Unfortunately, due to wedding photography being taken up there, we could not access inside but as far as I’ve seen from afar and in pictures, that place is a beautiful architecture to witness. You really feel like you just walked right into China. We went to check out this bamboo forest too around this particular area.
From afar, we admired the Chinese temple-inspired architecture and we could see weeping willow trees beside it (I’ve only seen them when I was in the south like in Georgia so I was so happy!).
We arrived to this area where the weeping willow trees were at behind more trees, where there was also a huge pond.
We sat on these concrete blocks so we can relax from walking for once and to breathe in the nature around us. Behind us, there was a fountain (not spitting out water however) with faces on it. Classic.
As the park was ready to close (you should come here earlier if you really want to see EVERYTHING), the next and last stops we made were to the Secret Garden. This was the most magical part of this whole fairy tale adventure. We see a castle!! I’m wondering if this is where the princess bride lives… hmm….
We decided to go inside the castle to check out what really is there. When you go in, it’s actually disappointing. There was nothing but a huge bell and a staircase to go up and see from outside. We went back down the staircase and went to the other end of the exit. We took ourselves to a maze! Throughout the maze, there were bushes dividing each walkway and you had to walk on brick flooring. When we got to the end of the maze, we were lead to just a tree and stone benches with fairy tale themed art on them. It was cute though!
My friends and I then decided it was time to head back home to Jersey. This was a wonderful park if you want to feel like you’re in a fairy tale and if you want to discover intriguing architectures. I wish we had time to go see the Staten Island Museum that was there but there’s always next time. 🙂
