chapter 67: GIVERNY

Another early morning in order to make our way to Giverny {starting to get used to this}. We rode the metro lines, but just missed the early train, which only meant we had a couple hours to kill at the train station.

After a 20 minute train ride and a bus transfer, we rounded our final turn to see a lush, green, oaisis surrounding us. It's no wonder Claude Monet took one look at the beauty Giverny had to offer and decided to settle there. We took advantage of the panarama option on our phone, hoping to capture everything our eyes could take in. The group of bus people all went straight, but we decided to forge our own path and explore the small town.

{Warning! Prepare yourself for a ton of pictures... how can you pick and choose when it comes to Giverny?? I'll tell you, it's impossible}

We sent off the beaten path a little bit and saw some of the old houses and churches on the outer edges (all with beautiful gardens... must be a law there). We walked along side a breathtaking yellow field and came to the conclusion that this was one place in France we too could settle.

We came across a sign that said "Giverny Jardin" and saw the enterence of a beautiful planned garden. It was very large and each plot was arranged by color. We walked through each area, taking a lot of pictures, thinking we had found the garden of Monet. We were slightly disappointed and thought they must have taken out the famous bridge and pond... It wasn't until we walked a little further that we realized that was just a normal garden attached to a museum and the garden attached to Monet's house was across the street.

{Disappointed face with the non-monet gardens}

We waited in a short line, entered his home and took a quick tour through each room. He planned each room to be over-the-top color coordinated (an all blue room, an all yellow room, etc.) We then left the home and entered his masterpiece. Wanting to caputre everything we could, we took out our camera, snapped about 2 shots and then it died... luckily, we both had our iPhones so the remainder of the pictures have iPhone camera quality. Almost tragic.

{Flowers in your FACE!}

{view from his kitchen window}

After touring the garden, we made our long way home back to Paris. Arriving a little later than expected, we decided it was too late to do anything since most stores were closed, but it was too early to turn in, so we just wandered around {map free} and stumbled upon a few sites accidentally:

The Moulin Rouge - still active and hopping... there was a huge line of ladies in dresses and men in tuxedos waiting to get in.

A beautiful church that wasn't 'known' to us, but still had amazing architecture.

THE {or just AN..not sure} Obolisk

A statue of Joan of Arc with a brief description of the heroin she was for France.

Starving with no real french food options, since all were closed, we bit the bullet and settled for something we swore we would never do... we grabbbed a pizza at Dominos at the end of our street.

Good but shameful.