A Walk in the Park

Paris--Day Three, Part One Giverny

Tuesday morning found us happily venturing to Giverny! When I was researching our trip, I weighed very heavily the pros and cons of going to Giverny vs. Versailles for a day out of town. I thought we'd have to choose between the two and the more logical one to do seemed to be Versailles. We scheduled Versailles for Thursday, but by rearranging a few things, we found we had room Tuesday morning for the trip to see Monet's gardens. Mark also had kind of fallen in love with Monet and his work after visiting Marmottan museum on Sunday and Orangerie on Monday. We really wanted to see his home and gardens.

We took the train from Gare St. Lazare. It was great to see the train station in person as I have seen many times Monet's painting of this train station. Getting our tickets was easy enough and the train was super comfortable and clean. Once arriving in Vernon, we boarded a shuttle bus for Giverny. We had a short walk through town and got our tickets to enter. We headed straight for the self-guided tour of his home and found it so charming. Loved seeing his studio. He had hung many many Japanese prints throughout his home and I love that he hung what inspired him everywhere in his home. The picture above is my second time through the house where Mark waited outside to snap my photo from his bedroom window (no photos allowed inside the house.)

We enjoyed a casual stroll through the gardens, which was still in bloom for mid-September. We loved our time around the water lily pond. It was peaceful and beautiful. The Japanese bridges that he painted were also so lovely. It was sort of overcast on the day we went, but could only imagine how beautiful the space would be in full bloom and on a very sunny day. The willow trees were also very striking. As we were there first thing in the morning, it was pretty uncrowded.

We decided to catch the first shuttle back to Paris. So we grabbed some crepes at a pretty restaurant/hotel just south of the home. It was lovely traveling to and from the bus station to see a small town in France. We settled in for our return trip to Paris. It was such a dream to be there.

posted by Kathryn @ 5:36 PM