Victorian Saratoga

A naiad yawns and stretches in eternal just-risen sleepiness at the Yaddo Gardens. I was caught in a sunshower while watching her, diamond-drops of rain falling on the manicured lawn and pittering in the fountains. The gardens, carved in 1899 out of the woods just beyond the racetracks, offer a wedge of Victorian leisure: rose plots laid out in simple geometries, marble statues of the Seasons (personified) at the paths' ends, marble benches where one might compose an Ode if it weren't for the traffic from Route 87 growling in the near distance. A vole (or something similarly rodential) blurred across the path and vanished into a burrow; dragonflies glittered and darted in the sun; a red squirrel scolded me for trespass. One fountain held koi with a Pavlovian response to visitors, congregating in my shadow to gumptiously mouth, "Feed me! Feed me!"

A mysterious statue called "Christalan" raised joyful arms in a glade, off by himself. He is, I learn now, a character in Under King Constantine, a book by Katrina Trask, for whom the gardens were built.

He lies amid the hushed and silent court,
The faded lilies still within his hand;
And with his weary, dying eyes he sees
The sword of Constantine above his head,
Giving, at last, the royal accolade,
While the King's face is full of yearning love;
And with his dying ears he hears the words,
That he has bravely striven to resign,
"Sir Christalan, my True and Valiant knight."

The names of her dead children are inscribed on the base.

Biking there and back, I passed Bruno's, where, I forgot to mention, I ate a wood-fired pizza last week—the appetizingly named "Seabiscuit"—with goat cheese, bacon, roasted garlic, tomatoes, and mozzarella. The pizza was quite tasty, and it is the sort of place where they grate fresh parmesan at your table if you want it; the horse-themed menu comes from being directly opposite the track. To give you a sense of the horsey set in Saratoga, while I was eating I heard one customer exclaim, "I'm literally rolling in cash. I've never been so wealthy!"

( Click for two more pictures, plus random bonus picture of Gus-Gus. )