Bordeaux Botanical Gardens

Opposite the city centre where tourists abound are Botanical Gardens which can be reached easily by tram or if one steps out it isn't a long walk from the bridge. Our tram ride was from the hotel near the peripherique. It was dead easy to find a place for coffee before entering the gardens.
For some reason I am working backwards with the pics!

Alongside the river were poems and historical facts etched into stone.  When I read and translated the one, by Jean de La Ville Mirmont,  not only did I think about those who went on a journey away from their families and friends during the war, but I also thought of the many people today who are migrating or travelling for whatever reason, leaving loved ones and beloved things behind.  I am also reminded of the journey of life, when death is perhaps the ultimate voyage. Those who are left, those who are not travelling, not migrating, might perhaps feel abandoned or rejected.  There are those who can feel the depths of intense emotion, passion, pain and torture of 'an unknowingness'  when their loved ones pack their bags. Much later, even after divorce or separation, even after wars of a different kind there are those who are saddled with their baggage.  WE MUST remember the faces of our loved ones, happiness we once experienced...and all of all the rest.  My memory often remembers my gentle grandmother; her face, her voice, her demeanour and I know not what baggage she carried! Hearts remember. 
My own interpretation is: 
This time, my heart, it is the grand voyage. We don't know when we will return. Will we be more proud, foolish or wise? Whatever happens we are going to have to leave and part from each other.
Before we leave, let us pack and put into our baggage all the wonderful and beautiful desires that we have offered or that have been offered to us.  Regret nothing, except the faces and loves which console us.  Remember.  This time my heart it is the long, hard, grand voyage / journey....
Is he telling his own heart, his own self or his sweet heart and all the people he has loved or known?

It made me cry as someone walked away.  I stared long at someone who was on a long journey  in which I was not included.  I braced myself.  I know that people have freedom to do they have to do.  I am grateful there is no war currently in my own life. Well... there have been plenty of disagreements in the past and there was certianbly something from someone going on this day.  Little did I know at the time that the global migrant issues were gathering apace.
SAD! 
Back to the joy of the gardens:
At the end of the gardens nearest to the river were wonderful metal gates but not gates, at the entrance / exit. I was not sure if they sometimes were closed. It didn't appear so by observing the ground.

The gardens were fascinating because they presented all forms of global terrain and the plants that grew on that kind of soil.  My heart found water lilies... whilst I was looking for lotus blossoms.

Within the gardens were apartments: the idea is that people tended the community gardens near to their housing, but some plots looked quite neglected.  The gardens are surrounded on three sides by high rise habitations and on the fourth side by the road, a green belt for leisure, cycling, jogging, picnics and the river.

The border of the botanical gardens is a metre wide wall of timber felled in the tempest of 1999. If one were to calclulate the amount of timber here one could appreciate the number of trees felled by the storm yet some put to good use here.  They probably harbour earthly creatures as well as provide a boundary.