Happy Holidays Bus Trip - DIG IT! Magazine

October 2018

Happy Holidays Bus Trip

JUST 1 SEAT LEFT! Please call if you want it! (See # at bottom)

This holiday season, DIG IT! Magazine and the Rollin’ Garden Party Bus will take you on a magical trip to the Brandywine Valley on December 4, 2018. We’ll experience sensory almost-overload with gardens, history, art, music and sensations galore. Sit back; relax. Leave the driving to us as we visit two duPont estates: Nemours Mansion and Gardens and Longwood Gardens

Stop One: Spend two hours at Nemours Mansion and Gardens with a one-hour self-guided tour of the classical French mansion built in 1909 by Alfred I. duPont for his second wife, Alicia. Docents in every room will answer questions. See the mansion decorated in holiday finery that the duPonts would have enjoyed.

Then have a one-hour guided tour of the largest formal French-style garden in North America. The visible bones and art of this 90-acre, 100-year old winter garden, uninhibited by flowers and color, show off design, sculpture, four miles of pruned evergreens, plants as architecture, long sweeping views, statuary, fountains, a colonnade, stonework. The way architecture is used, symmetry and plant material, especially, are seen at their best in winter, like the 4.5-mile allee of pruned evergreens.

“It’s a really great example of what you can do with ordinary plants in a large setting with TLC, grouping and pruning,” says Ken Darsney, horticulturist. “I have a special part here. I get to learn more about a garden in winter here.”

“Alfred I. duPont almost always got what he wanted, and what he wanted was something big, bold and beautiful, the biggest and perhaps the most beautiful house in the whole state of Delaware: 77 rooms, more than an acre of floor space, and gardens and fountains that could withstand comparison to those at Versailles. That comparison should come as no surprise, because Nemours, named after the French town the duPonts once called home, was inspired by Versailles' Petit Trianon, the Neoclassical mansion in which Marie Antoinette found refuge from the rigors of the court of Louis XVI.

“Equally impressive is the Versailles-inspired garden, the finest example in North America of a formal French garden—an exhilarating quarter-mile vista. A long walk leads to a huge reflecting pool, which opens onto a maze, a colonnade, a sunken garden, a lake and, finally, at the very end, a small round temple enclosing a statue of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. The duPonts came to the United States from France in 1800, just after the French Revolution. A hundred years later Alfred duPont re-created a bit of the old country—the France of the guillotined Bourbons—in Delaware's Brandywine Valley.” – by Gerald Clarke, Architectural Digest

Stop Two: Longwood Gardens, former home of Pierre duPont, Alfred’s cousin. Oh, those duPonts. No one does it like Longwood! We’re on our own at Longwood Gardens for five hours. Dine anytime you like in the Terrace Café. Shop for Christmas in the elaborate gift shop. Enjoy the gardens indoors and out. Join a sing-along to holiday tunes by the mighty 10,010-pipe pipe organ at 2, 3 and 4:00.

This year’s theme is iHomage to the Christmas Tree
Colorful lights emblazon outdoor trees as part of the 500,000 lights in the garden. See fountains dance to music from 750 jets at 2:15 and 4:15. Sip hot cocoa and warm by the fire pits while you soak up the songs of carolers. Check out the Garden Railway near the Terrace Café with more than 400 feet of track and staff-built Longwood landmarks made of natural materials.

Come join us for an exciting Happy Holidays jaunt!

DATE: Tuesday, December 4, 2018
TIME: Lakeland Bus leaves the Rockaway Mall at 8:15am SHARP! and returns 8:30-ish.
SECOND PICK-UP: Goodyear Auto Service, 280. Rt.202, Flemington, NJ at 9:15
COST: $92/person and includes bus, driver tip, garden entrance fees and guided tour, treats and homemade goodies.
REGISTER: Here.
QUESTIONS: mary@dig-itmag.com

Cancellation & Refund Policy:
DIG IT! reserves the right to cancel the trip due to insufficient registration.
If DIG IT! cancels the trip, you get a full refund. If you cancel the trip you get a 30% refund up till November 19. No refunds after November 19.
First come; first served. Your reservation secures your seat.