13 Normandy Giverney, Monet House

Breakfast was included in the hotel's price with a croissant served in a beautiful room, glass sliders out to a yard with birds and roses. That morning we stopped at a bread store just like real French people. I ordered a bagatelle in French and left with my prize, a 18” loaf of marvelous french bread and a big smile on my face. We continued to our second stop on the way back to Paris the town of Giverney, home of the famous impressionist painter Claude Monet from 1883 to his death in 1926. This place is amazing, beautiful, magical I do not have enough words to describe it but I will try. Acres of flowers ranging the spectrum of color, from bold to pastel. The size of the flowers ranging from tiny tear drops giving a light feathery feel to those the size of grapefruits commanding the eye. The heights of the flowers were from an inch to 10' tall, woven together into an exquisite masterpiece. A true gift to visit. The beauty of the gardens takes you inside Monet’s paintings. We visited his house surrounded by his flower gardens. It was beautiful with unique colors you would not have thought would work together but he knew how to combine the colors of the gardens outside and the light coming in through the windows, incredible. The walls are covered with his paintings and those of Japanese woodblocks that Monet collected passionately for fifty years. The house’s construction is a railroad train style with a width of one medium sized room. Monet’s imagination made it extraordinary. There are two gardens an outstanding flower garden surround the house and his famous water garden that inspired his famous water lily series. He created these gardens himself ordering hundreds of seeds and bulbs and planting them artistically, incasing

his home in outstanding beauty (he did have professional gardeners to help). Monet mixed the simplest flowers (daisies and poppies) with the most rare varieties. The walkway leading to his front door are covered by a series of iron arches climbed by roses. When we were there the long pathway leading to his front door was invaded with a green ground cover dotted with yellow & orange flowers (nasturtium), flanking the reddish pebbled walkway crated a winding pathway to his front door. Claude Monet did not like organized nor constrained gardens.
There were young grade school children in the gardens so interested and enthusiastic working on their flower identification sheets. Later we saw them in a field painting pictures of gardens. What a wonderful opportunity for them, all of them were appreciative and very well behaved. The museum shop was amazing, I lost control. I brought a book describing this marvelous place in words

and pictures and bought gifts for my family. My greatest purchase was a door knocker of a bird for only 11 euro ($15). I found the exact knocker on Amazon for $64 and mine comes from Giverny, priceless. It is already on my front door. I could have brought a lot more except for our luggage restriction (I guess that was a good thing, I think?). After leaving the gardens we actually ate at a real restaurant having a delicious ham and cheese bagatelle sandwich with a glass of wine. We needed to get in our exercise so we went for a hike in the surrounding town and country side, beautiful. On the way back to the car we stoped at an ice cream stand and indulged. What a great day! Back to our gem of a B&B and dinner. We were happy. Sweet dreams.