Monet's Garden

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Geo: 49.0772, 1.52444

This morning we took the train to the little village of Giverny, to visit Monet's Garden. It has always been on Kim's bucket list to visit Monet's Garden, particularly since visiting Musee de l"Orangerie on our last Europe holiday and seeing Monet's "Water Lilies” panorama. Giverny lies around one hour north of Paris, and after the train stopped at Vernon, we took the bus to the gardens. It was in these gardens that Monet's famous Water Lilies and Weeping Willow Tree paintings were produced.

Monet was one of the founders of Impressionist Painting, having painted in 1872 “Impression, Sunrise” depicting a Le Havre port landscape. This painting hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.

It was in May 1883 that Claude Monet and his large family rented a house and 2 acres (8,100 m²) from a local landowner at Giverny. By November 1890, Monet was prosperous enough to buy the house, the surrounding buildings and the land for his gardens. Monet was fond of painting controlled nature: his own gardens in Giverny, with its water lilies, pond, and bridge. He wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet's wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners.

Monet died on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny Church cemetery, which we visited after viewing the gardens and the house where he lived. Also buried in the Church grounds were seven airmen from a Lancaster Bomber that crashed near the village in 1944. Part of the Lancaster Bomber propeller marks the graves.

We had lunch at a local Giverny restaurant, and dinner we bought on our way back to our flat.

After dinner we headed out for a walk to the Île de la Cité in the middle of the River Seine, taking photos of the Eiffel Tower lit up. We then walked along the Seine listening to musicians outside of Notre Dame Cathedral, watched some skaters jumping over an almost impossible limbo setup on a Pont over the river, checked out some souvenir shops, listened to a freestyle brass band on another Pont, then walked back to our flat.

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Photos

Skater Clearing the Limbo
with Notre Dame in background.