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| Painting by Claude Monet |
This is one of the trips we did before the age of digital cameras and smart phones, so the photos we took on this trip are all on slides. Hopefully I will be able to get some of these slides digital to include in the blog. At this stage, the photos in this post are not mine.
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| Water lilies |
One of my wife's (Marie) favorite artists is Claude Monet. On one of our trips to France, we visited the Musee D'Orsey in Paris, which has quite a large collect of Monet paintings. She was totally in oar being able to see some genuine Monet painting. She has a few posters of his artwork and a few of the originals could be see here.
The Musee D'Orsey is in an old railway station and it is often overlooked by the millions of tourists who flock to Paris - although I think that this is changing. The first time I went to Musee D'Orsey, there was basically no line. The last time I went there, there was a long line. Most tourists flock to the Louvre when it comes to art museums. Yes, there are some great works of art in the Louvre, like the Mons Lisa (which is much smaller then you think) and the statue of David. There are some 35000 priceless artworks housed in the Louvre. It would take 100 days to see all of the artworks on display in the Louver if you spent only 30 seconds with each piece.
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| Lily pond at Monet's house |
The Musee D'Orsey has an amazing collection of impressionist paintings. Some of the works of the following artists are on display here: Ingres, Delacroix, Monet, Degas, Manet, Gaugin, Toulouse-Lautrc and Van Gogh. This is well worth a day trip when in Paris.
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| Monet's house in Giverny |
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| Monet's studio |
However, the highlight of this trip was a visit to the house of Claude Monet. This is a great day trip from Paris. Firstly, you need to make your way to the train station which will get you to the village.
The small village of Giverny is on the main Paris, Rouen La Havre line. The trains leave from Paris from the Saint-Lazare station. The station to get off at is Vernon-Giverny. Once you arrive at Vernon station, Giverny is still about 4 km away. From Spring to Autumn, there is a shuttle bus from the train station to Giverny and the round trip costs 10 Euro.
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| The walk to Givarney |
The other option is to walk - it is only 4 km after all. This is an interesting walk through the town of Vernon. You need to cross over the River Seine. Do not follow the road signs to Giverny as this is for cars. Cross the road and take the path to your right. This is an old railway track and you can walk the 5 km away from the traffic. This is what we did.
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| Old bridge over the River Seine |
Marie has this thing where she does not want to get burnt by the sun. So she keeps herself covered up. On out trip to Monet house, she had a black polar neck jersey on. So she was pretty much covered from head to toe. Claude Monet's house is quite a long way out of the village and we decided to walk there. It was about a two hour walk. It got really hot! Marie was walking in her black polar neck. Later, we found out that this was one of the worst heat waves ever in Europe and thousands of people had died due to the heat. The news mentioned some 30 000 people had died across Europe, but not sure how true this was. So, during the worst heat wave of record, Marie was walking in her black polar neck jersey so that she would not damage her skin. I guess that we are just a bit tougher coming from Africa!
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| Old bridge and mill |
Anyway, we survived the walk! Visiting Monet house was a really great day trip. There were not too many people - nowhere near the long lines to get into the museums in Paris. The visit to the hose included his studio where he did many of his paintings. There were quite a few of his paintings on display. You could also spend time in his house. This was also a very interesting experience. The amazing use of colour in the different rooms. The visit to Monet's bedroom was just too much for Marie and she burst into tears! This was a real highlight of her travels.
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| The pond and bridge is still there |
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| Monet's kitchen |
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| Monet's bedroom - there is a photo of her looking out from the window. |
Then - of course there was the gardens. These have been kept just as Monet had them. His gardens were the inspiration for many of his painting. A short way away from the house was the lily ponds - complete with the little wooden bridge which featured in quite a few of his painting. Monet is probably most known for his many water lily painting. This garden and pond is where he spent his time painting his water lilies.
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| Vernon is also well worth a visit with some beautiful buildings |
Marie had done her homework and she discovered that Monet's grave was in a small grave yard not far from his house. It looked like not too many people knew about his grave, as we were the only people there.
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| More interesting sites in Vernon |
All too soon it was time to hear back to Paris. This is a great day trip from Paris and is well worth doing.
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| The old mill and castle |
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