Monet's Gardens

Wednesday May 11th

Today we took the train to Vernon and then a bus to Giverny to visit Claude Monet’s house and gardens. This is something that I have really wanted to do, but have been scared off by the mobs of tourists.  My guidebook said “if you love waterlilies more than you hate crowds, then by all means visit.”  I hate crowds, so I have been putting it off, but as this is our last week in Paris it was now or never.  Plus, the crowds have really dropped off in the last week as those who visited the week before or week after Easter headed home.

We took the 8:20 train which got us to Giverny just as the house and gardens opened at 9:30. Giverny is 4 miles from the train station and a bus meets very train from paris.  The bus fills up and then takes you to the bus parking lot near, but not in Giverny.  It is still about a 15 minute walk from the bus lot to the house and garden.  It seemed like the entire train emptied into those two buses, and Katie was the youngest on the bus by about 25 years.  We were in the front of the bus and since we were more fit and most of the people on the bus, we arrived at the head of the pack for entrance into the grounds.  We bought our tickets, filed through the gift shop and entered the gardens. 

The gardens were in full bloom ( I think they manage to make them bloom continuously from April to  October) and were amazing.  It really felt like you were standing in a Monet painting. Katie wanted to wander around the gardens, but I had a mission. I wanted to get to the Japanese brigde before the crowds caught us.  We left most of them on the way to the ticket office, lost more in gift shop, and more still when we entered the gardens.  The water section of the garden is the farthest away. You have to walk through the regular gardens and then under a subterranean passage that then pops up in the water gardens. The passage is under the road, that if it existed in Monet’s day was much smaller than it is now. It’s kind of weird that the gardens are bisected by a road, but the gardens are designed to minimize the impact.

Once we got to the water garden, we were with only a few people who had also hightailed it there.  There were about 10 people in the area, and we all got great unspoiled photos of ourselves on the brides and by the waterlilies.  It unreal to actually be standing on the bridges in Monet’s garden.  There are two primary bridges, both with the familiar arched design, in the pond;  and several smaller bridges over steams.  Katie and I were able to walk slowly around the garden, marvel at the flowers, and colors and take a lot of photos.  We played pooh sticks off the bridges into the stream, and just enjoyed being there.  Every flower was spectacular in purples, reds and pinks.  The feeling was surreal.

As more tourists made their way down to the water section, we went back up the regular gardens and enjoyed the spectacular iris displays, rose trees and arched trellises. 

We went inside the house which looks like what you would expect from Monet. The ceilings were high, the rooms light and airy with plenty of sunlight and lined with windows.  One room was painted green, another blue and a third yellow.  I love lots of light and bright colors on the walls. Katie and I both agreed that this was a perfect house.  We stood in Monet’s studio where he painted for 40 years! The walls were lined with reproduction of 60 famous works painted in that very space.

After the house we went to the water gardens one more time.  it was getting quite crowded so we walked around slowly admiring one more time, and headed out.  All in all, it only took about an hour to see, but oh so worth it!

We walked up the main street of Giverny, Rue de Claude Monet and visited his grave site.  We found two letterboxes in the cemetery!  We walked past a small museum, but did not go in.  The grounds were open though and we saw a large field of poppies right out of a painting.  Even better, a local preschool was there and all the little kids were painting pictures of the bright red poppies.  So Cute!!!!!

We made it back to Paris in the early afternoon, so decided to attempt to mail some items back home.   We no longer need our warm clothes, or our beach shoes, or a lot other items. For the next month of travel, lighted bags will be good, so we packed up all unnecessary stuff and hauled it down to the shipping store on the corner using a Traders Joe’s bag  The counter clerk didn’t speak English, but we were able to figure things out.   We weighed everything and it was 12 kg of stuff (26 lbs). He told me that it was going to be expensive, but he would check it out for me.  For some reason it couldn’t go UPS, I’m not sure why, and Fedex, even using their slowest service was going to be 400 euros!!!  We backed off that plan fast. He recommended buying a box and tape and shipping through the post office.  So we headed back to our apartment with all our stuff plus a big box and a roll of packing tape.

As we hauled the stuff up to pack it ourselves, I realized at about the 4^th flight of stairs, that we should have left it all in the courtyard and just gone up for scissors and a sharpie.  Oh well, we packed it all up and hauled it back down again, now in a box addressed to Paul.  I carried it three long blocks to the post office and mailed it home for a fraction of the cost to FedEx.  I did feel nervous handing it all over, but they assured me it will arrive in about a week.  I guess we’ll see!