This photograph was taken at the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. in April of 2005. We timed our visit with the National Cherry Blossom Festival & Parade and were very fortunate that the sakura trees were in full bloom at the time.

There are sakura trees all over and they were a sight to behold! Beautiful from a distance, but also up close. The delicate flowers from afar almost resemble light pink clouds.

We didn't walk around the full length of the basin. It's a long ways around, and it was so crowded, and it wasn't even the day of the parade. It was amazing to see such a multicultural mix of tourists and locals coming together to see the trees in bloom. Some had picnic lunches and had found some small space amongst the trees to sit down and enjoy the view.

One thing I hadn't realized before our trip was that there are so many different varieties of sakura trees. Some have smaller flowers, some have flowers that are clustered together tighter. The bark looks different on others, and the actual color of the flowers vary from almost white to a full pink.