Giverny

To finish up my solo weekend of adventures I took a little day trip out to Monet's house in Giverny. Monet has been my favorite artist for a long time, and was a big inspiration to me throughout my painting years (which I still try to keep up with here and there). Les Nymphéas (his water lilies) are stunning and I've always wanted to see his gardens. Monet is quoted as saying "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers". And after seeing his gardens I am not surprised at all. They are absolutely gorgeous and vibrant.

The trip was a lot easier than I imagined, considering when my friend wheeler went he ended up in Rouen. I bought my tickets online beforehand and showed up with plenty of time to find the track and validate my ticket. It was a quick 45 minute train out to Giverny and when I got off the train there was a cute kitschy little bus/train looking thing that was advertising rides straight to Monet's house. (The train station is actually in Vernon, a 15 minute drive across the river from Giverny). The bus looked like something out of Disney world, and probably would have been nicer in the summer considering all the open windows now covered with tarps. But I read online that there was a shuttle from the train station to Monet's house so I figured this must be it. (It wasn't. They just got to us before the shuttle and charged us 2 extra euros for the "experience"). Though we did get a nice audio tour of the history of Vernon and giverny while bumping along the streets with the freezing wind whipping in our faces. The countryside was also beautiful - all the leaves were changing colors and we could see little clusters of houses climbing the mountains. So I suppose that was worth the extra 2 euros. I also met two nice girls from Mexico on the bus/train who I chatted with for a while. They're studying in Paris too and had lived in a lot of cities all over. 

The bus dropped us off at a parking lot a 5 minute walk from Monet's house. Giverny is an adorable little town filled with little streets, brown thatched roofs, and ivy climbing every wall. It reminded me a little of ambroise. I say that like giverny is a big town but there were maybe 15 buildings which are probably all now dedicated to the Monet foundation and serve as cafe's/souvenir shops.

It was pretty chilly so I grabbed a café allongé from one of said cafés and headed to the house. In typical French fashion, to go cups of coffee don't truly exist, so instead I was given a plastic cup with a shot of espresso and maybe a tablespoon of water. Naturally It kept sloshing over my gloves so I had to bite the bullet and chug it. 

You enter the gardens from one corner and it seems like there are flowers for as far as the eye can see. There are all different types with every color and shape you could imagine. There are small little dirt paths leading through all the flowers with some little benches were you can sit and soak it all in. I was really glad to see that the flowers were all still alive and perky even though it was fall. I'm sure they spend a lot of money keeping them looking like that... The gardens close October 31st so I caught them just in time.

Monet's house is situated on a hill looking over his garden. To be honest there's not too much to say about the house. It's modest, with colorful walls, and a lot of Japanese drawings on the walls. There's one room that is filled with his paintings. It took my breath away at first until I saw the sign that said "replicas of Monet's most famous works". I guess there are more important places for Monet's work to be kept...

View from Monet's bedroom window

Walking off of his front porch there is a beautiful archway of flowers. So naturally I asked a lovely Asian tourist to take my photo. So here's that:

I spent some more time in the gardens after that and made my way to the Lilly pond. Seeing the pond was surreal. I felt like I was in one of Monet's paintings. It felt so familiar even though I had never been there before. Sadly there weren't very many water lillies since it was fall but there were lots of Lilly pads, and tons of grand sweeping willows. They also had the iconic Japanese bridge that Monet painted so many times until his vision gave way. The trees were changing colors and the flowers were so beautiful.

I also noticed that there were lots of women here accompanied by who I assume were their significant others that were basically taking photo shoots with the water lilies. I guess there's no better place right? Anyways, I assumed they must be professional photo takers and since I knew no one there I had no shame in asking for another solo shot. This woman was very nice and insisted on taking 10+ photos of my because the lighting wasn't right but it just wasn't gonna work from the beginning..

To finish up my visit I sat and sketched on a few benches in the gardens. I wished I had had colors cause that is really the only way to do Giverny justice - but the pencil and paper just had to do the job. I haven't drawn in a long time, so it was really nice and peaceful to sit and enjoy in such a beautiful place. It was also funny because lots of people would walk by me and be whispering and pointing probably like "omg look an artist in Monet's gardens how picturesque!" And I'm just like "lol this thing is scribbles". 

I was very content on my train ride home and definitely won't forget the magic that was Monet's gardens. For now I'll just have to settle for a visit to the Orangerie here and again. I wish I could have gardens like those someday :)