The Way of Monet

Today was one of the primary reasons we wanted to add our Parisian visit. We had purchased tickets online to visit Monet’s Garden having never been during previous visits to Paris. We had usually been in late fall and winter, so this was the perfect time. Flowers in June. Now or never.

The two previous days were sunny and hot (80s). We woke up this morning to low 60s and rain (the weather forecast was dry and low 70s). Now or never.

We dug out the umbrellas and raincoats and made the tough decision on how to get to Giverny. It’s not close and you can get tickets only for either the morning or the afternoon. We’d been told to leave a half day for the trip and visit. Wrong. You almost need a full day. But, so what. We grabbed a taxi at 9 am to fight rush hour traffic to Gare Lyon and still had to rush to get tickets for the 10:20 train to Vernon…for our 1:30 entrance to the house and gardens. Now a choice between a bus or a scenic, semi-open tram to get to the garden. The tram was right there so we hopped on and bore the slow, winding route.

Before entering the house and gardens we stopped at the local church burial ground where we found the final resting place of Monet’s…along with other members of his family.

We also found a little escargot on the hoof making a visit.

The rain let up just as we entered the garden, but still cool with beautifully filtered light. Let these very few views of the gardens tell their own story. All the visitors were in awe.

And, almost on queue the sun started coming out giving a whole new glow to the garden as we moved on to the water lilly ponds.

We were in an absolutely dynamic painting. What a beautiful way to end our visit.

The house was spectacular as well with replicas of all the famous paintings Monet had collected during his life. What a contrast to van Gogh who we’ll visit in a few days in Arles.

Now we reversed our tracks back to Paris where we searched and found one of the best Lebanese/Middle eastern restaurants we’ve ever been in.

We ate outside on what had become another beautiful evening, bought more of their homemade baklava and other pastries for later, and walked it off back to the hotel, where we had to pack for tomorrow’s bus and train ride to Lyon.

But before we went to bed we went to the Sky bar on the 35th floor for a panoramic view of the City of Lights (and a half a finger of Laphraoig 10 for 25 Euros – paid for the photos. Even more worth it, at the stroke of 10 The Eiffel Tower suddenly lit up and began to sparkle to wish us a bon voyage on our trip south.

Eiffel Tower Goodbye (click here)