Claude Monet House in Giverny

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23 October 2010

We continued our journey in the first wet weather we had had for over two weeks and finally made the Seine at the town of Mantes-la-Jolie. To raise our spirits we found a nice restaurant and had a delicious lunch.

On leaving the restaurant the weather was dry and brighter and we made for the village of Giverny where the painter Claude Monet had his home close to the Seine for the last 43 years of his life. The house, garden and the artificial pond containing the Japanese footbridge and water lilies he often painted are all open to the public and we spent a pleasant hour (along with lots of Japanese tourists) wandering around. Although many of the flowers were dead we enjoyed the autumn colours of some of the trees.

Then it turned cold and wet again so we retreated to a campsite in the nearby town of Vernon and hibernated for the night with the van’s heating turned up and Strictly Come Dancing on the television.

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