Monet at Giverny

First, a little note about the train.  In some of the stations in France, they have a piano for anyone to play.  We heard some incredible music from these performers which makes the wait worthwhile.  I should also note that I am featuring Nancy’s photos in this blog.

No, we didn’t get to meet Monet, but we did get a nice feel for where he painted.  Our train from Paris took us to Vernon, France, which is certainly not pronounced as it looks.  The main claim to fame for Vernon is that it is a small town on the Seine that gives you access to the smaller village of Giverny where Claude Monet lived and created many of his works like the famous water lily paintings. Our mission was to visit his home and see the gardens.  We arrived in the late afternoon when the shadows were long and wandered about a mile through the little town until we found the Hotel Normandy.  Then we decided to walk down to the Seine and then explore the town.  We found a small outdoor restaurant that was still open and enjoyed a pizza.

We got up early the next morning to catch the first bus to Giverny at 9:30.  It arrives at back at the train station, so we fortified ourselves with a big breakfast and headed out to beat the first tourists on the 9:15 train from Paris and get the first seats on the bus.  We could have walked or ridden bikes for the trip to Giverny, but we didn’t know how long we would be at the gardens, and we needed to catch one of the trains back to Le Havre that afternoon. A nice little local market was opening as we made our way.

 

Our bus parked about ½ mile from the entrance to the house, giving us a nice walk through the charming narrow streets of Giverny. An enlarged photo let us know that we were at the right place.

And we were indeed ahead of the crowds of tourists that would be there when we left. Tourists came by car, by tour bus, by train and even tour boats along the Seine.  We entered through the gift shop and were immediately in the immense gardens.  I’m just going to overload you with some photos of the garden and ponds.  There is not much to say except, you could see where he got the inspiration for many works, and it must have taken a huge staff to keep these gardens.  There was an incredible variety of flowers blooming here in mid-September.

 

After the gardens, we had a crowded tour of the house where you were just swept along in a line of visitors speaking a dozen different languages.  Most of the artworks in the house were from other artists who had visited Monet in Giverny.  We could imagine the kind of inspiration he might have gotten as he looked from his studio window.

Whew.  That was almost sensory overload from several hours of looking and taking pictures.  So, we headed out to explore the little town of Giverny.  There are enough inns and B&B establishments to stay in Giverny, and we wished that we had had enough time to do that.  We sat for a while and ate lunch and had coffee at one of the outdoor cafes, and then we walked further down the main street to Le Musee des Impressionnes .  We walked around the outside and watched a few painters at work as they channeled Monet.

We continued on down the street until we came to the little village church where Monet is purported to be buried, but we didn’t find his grave.  There is also a moving monument to U.S. airmen who were held in high regard by the older generation of French people.

We backtracked and headed for the return bus to Vernon, grabbed our bags from the hotel, walked to the train station (again) and head to the ship in Le Havre on the next train.  What a great experience.