Paris and the Heart of France
Day 10 - Monet's Gardens of Inspiration
After breakfast at our hotel, we boarded the bus and headed inland to Giverny, to visit Claude Monet's home, studio and gardens.
Once inside we took a group picture, with the rest of our time free to explore the property. Monet's Gardens at Giverny is a popular destination, with some 500,000 people visiting it annually during the seven months it is open.
Don't let the crowds spoil the experience for you. As you walk around the ponds, you will see the subject matter, the vantage points and of course the inspiration for so much of Monet's work. The gardens and lily ponds are an absolutely beautiful setting, truly fit for a painting.
The Japanese bridges are of course a very popular location to take selfies, as is actually just about every place in Giverny.
We then went to see the gardens in front of Monet's house. Wow, they are magnificent.
At that point, the lines to get into Monet's house were out the door. Not knowing whether the lines would eventually let up or not, we got into the line too.
My first surprise was that Monet had incredible Japanese prints everywhere. I was astounded at their quality and recognized prints I have seen in the best art museums. Of course when you are in Monet's house, you are probably not thinking about looking at Japanese prints. But you should. Monet surrounded himself with 18th and 19th century prints by the masters of the medium including Katushika Hokusai, Kitagawa Utamaro, and Utagawa Hiroshige. There are currently 211 original Japanese woodblock prints on display.
In contrast, all of the other paintings in Monet's studio and his bedroom are just copies. Seeing reproductions of Monet's paintings was okay for us since we had already seen the originals at the Marmottan-Monet museum in Paris before the trip began. I am really glad they put copies exactly where the originals hung, since that made the visit to Monet's house so much more realistic and special.
Schedule
The longer we stayed at Monet's home and garden, the more the tourists moved on which made the experience all the more enjoyable. After visiting the gift shop, we walked down to get something to eat (nothing noteworthy), before heading back to the bus.
Back in Paris, our final hotel was the 4 star Hotel Waldorf Trocadero (97 Rue Lauriston, 75116 Paris, France). The hotel was just a short distance from the Trocadero Plaza and its views of the Eiffel Tower.
With some free time before dinner, I headed out to La Défense, the modern business district of Paris, to take abstract architecture photos and enjoy the sculptures. One of the immediately recognizable artists works was by Alexander Calder, whose Red Spider (1976) was his last monumental sculpture.
Back at the hotel, we met up with the rest of the tour group and walked down towards the Trocadero Plaza and then to our farewell dinner at restaurant XVIE Avenue, (45 Avenue Raymond Poincare). I had the steak-frites and my wife had the duck. While my steak was great, the duck was even better. Best part was the profiteroles for dessert. It was a fitting end to a great trip.
We were very happy with this entire tour. So much so, that a Rick Steves tour will definitely be the first choice for our next trip to Europe.
Monet's Gardens at Giverny was my wife's favorite part of our entire trip. I loved it very much as well, but I am hard pressed to pick a single favorite moment or place. Could I really decide whether I enjoyed seeing Monet's water lily gardens more than I did seeing his paintings of them?
I enjoyed visiting every place we went, and all we saw. I would have enjoyed spending more time at every stop, which I guess is really a good thing. There is so much I wanted to see in Paris, and France, that we just didn't have time to see it all. But that is not a bad thing, it means we have a reason to return. It's not like we need another reason, I am still craving warm, fresh chocolate croissants for breakfast, the best ham and cheese on baguette sandwiches for lunch, the duck for dinner, profiteroles for dessert and chocolate chocolate eclairs all throughout the day. I can't wait to go back to France!