Sat, Aug 29, Giverny: Up this morning and downstairs
to enjoy a lovely full breakfast prepared by the owner himself, after which we
headed to Giverny and the Monet Maison et Jardin. Everyone warned us there would be lines, but
we zipped right in. I bought the tickets
weeks ago on line. The gardens are
beautiful. He bought this property and
moved here in 1886 when he was 46. He
built the lily pond, and both the gardens and lily pond were the inspiration
for most of his paintings since. The
house is much larger than I thought. A
very comfortable home and he created for himself a beautiful, bright and airy
studio. After touring the house and
gardens we stopped at a little café for some lunch. On the way over here, I took a stab at
driving the car. I thought I did pretty
well. Only jerked it once and never
stalled it out. Mike thinks he’s an Indy
driver now with this six-speed Opel. Back
to our lovely B&B and relaxed with the resident cat. Think we’ll go back to Giverny for dinner
tonight. Tomorrow we head to
Normandy. That’s if we/I can program the
GPS correctly (sigh). A beautiful, sunny
day today and really warm—somewhere in the 80s.
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| Walking through Giverny. |
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| Touring the gardens. |
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| So beautiful! |
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| Dining room in Monet's home. |
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| The kitchen. |
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| Look at that stove! |
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| Photo of Monet. He reminds me of Hemmingway. |
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| Back to our B&B. That's our entrance up the stairs. This used to be a barn. Animals were housed downstairs, people lived upstairs. |
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| The resident cat. |
