Huntington Gardens and Art Museum - San Marino, California

We spent an afternoon recently at the Huntington in San Marino (near Pasadena).  Officially known as the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, it was founded in 1919 by railroad tycoon Henry Huntington.

It was such a nice day outside that we spent most of our time in the gardens, but we also toured one of the art museum buildings as well.  They closed fairly early that day so we had to skip the library.

Our first stop, and one of our favorite parts of the Huntington, is the Chinese Garden - the Garden of Flowering Fragrance.  It's the newest of the gardens there, but the landscaping has now grown in quite a bit since the last time we visited, and it's a great place to spend some time wandering.

Here's an image from the upper part of the Japanese Garden.

The Huntington's former residence has been turned into an art museum, with a very impressive collection of works including Gainsborough's Blue Boy and Lawrence's Pinkie.

Click here to see a few more images from the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.