For one weekend a year in September, you can see all sorts of things in Paris that you normally couldn't. It's the Journées du Patrimoine, the Heritage Days, when some notable closed-to-the-public spaces become public.
We headed over to the Palais du Luxembourg to see the Sénat. A pleasant surprise on the way there was that the Garden's Greenhouses were open as well.
So many honeybees!
I always feel like the bees know the days for collecting are numbered this time of year.
They do keep hives on the other side of the Garden. I'm sure that's why they have the most spectacular blooms.
The Sénat was a long wait to get in and packed with people.
The palais du Luxembourg was built for Catherine de Medici and it was appropriately fit for a queen before being repurposed into the Senate.
We realized that we couldn't just walk around the gardens at Monet's house forever and we eventually would need to eat, we set off to explore Giverny. Giverny has been a haven for artist, both French and American, for more than a century. It's a quiet little hamlet wedged between a hillside and the Seine surrounded by the Norman courntyside. Pretty much everyone who lives there seems to have a green thumb.
There's lots of quaint shops, galleries and cafes to check out and there seemed to be a plethora of adorable B&Bs if you cared to stay.
There's a simple old church at the end of town where Monet is buried.
We did find a few mapped trails in the area. We hiked around the meadows and hills while the clouds started to roll in. Having a few sunny hours in Normandy is pretty sweet, but you have to prepare yourself for the inevitable rainstorm. I guess that might be the price you pay to live in a place where the gardens are almost tropically lush.
It's not quite so mountainous to do a convincing Sound of Music reenactment, but I could try.
Another place to stop is the Musee des Impressionismes.
They had lovely color-coordinated gardens to explore. The museum itself was a well-organized walk through of the history of impressionist paintings and drawing and rotating exhibits. It was small- it probably took less than an hour to see everything- but well curated and doled out interesting bits of information.
We considered ourselves lucky that it started to rain as we were on the train platform to go home. The past couple weeks have started to actually feel downright summery here in Northern France. It's still a good idea to wear a sweater when you go out as it is far from broiling, but the sun has been appearing a bit more than it rains. It's a nice change as I was getting awfully tired of living under a waterspout.
At the famed writer's roundtable at the Algonquin hotel (which is now run by Marriott, boo) they used to play a word game in which a word was shouted and you had to give a witty definition on the spot. Someone gave Dorothy Parker the word "Horticulture", in which she quipped, "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think".
Which made me giggle when I was 14 and it makes me giggle today still, especially when I find myself wandering around a beautiful oasis such as the garden in back of Monet's house.
I know that impressionist painting is kind of a gateway drug into fine art, and people love love love the impressionist wings at any museum. I grow a little tired of it- I feel it got really over exposed and commercialized with all this waterlilies this and waterlilies that printed on every imaginably surface. It's not my favorite style, but I realize that it was am important step in the abstract direction.
I'm not going to pass up a chance to check out a beautiful garden though.
I've been wanting to make the trip up for a while, but I really didn't want to deal with a rainy day. I'm glad I waited. This wouldn't have been a fun day otherwise.
It's an easy trip- a 45 minute train ride from St Lazare to Vernon station, and then either a quiet country walk for a couple miles, or a shuttle bus will bring you to the village of Giverny.
If you want to skip the line to get in, which is breathtakingly long, you can buy your tickets online in advance, or take a stroll over to the Impressionist Museum down the street and buy a combined ticket, and then you can smugly cut in front of everyone.
The gardens were lovely. The layers and layers of colors was just incredible. I don't think I've ever been to in such a highly concentrated pollenated area.
I was in awe of the work that went into this place.
SO MANY FLOWERS!
Everyone flocks to the part of the garden which because synonymous with Monet- the Waterlilies.
What begins as a quiet forest stream turns into the pond where his most famous works were painted. In French, these works are known as Les Nymphéas.
Inspired by prints from Japan, Monet had built himself a Japanese style water garden on a stream by the Seine.
It really does look like a Monet painting!
You couldn't help but feeling inspired by it.
I mean, I hate to gush and all, but it's a really lovely place.
July just happens to be when Les Nymphéas are in bloom. I'm sure it's lovely at any time of the year, but it was a real treat to see the blooms on the water.
We did make it a point to go very early in the morning, but it got crowded really quickly. We had a few quiet moments where the world was just sunny and peaceful and happy.
There were bees everywhere!
I'm actually surprised they aren't selling special Monet Honey in the giftshop.
You couldn't take pictures inside the house, but it had a lot of the Japanese art on the walls, a recreation of his studio, bedrooms with a garden view, and a really nice big kitchen.
I could have stayed there all day, watching the light change and watching the bees fill up their bee-pants with pollen.
The people watching wasn't all the bad either.
If you are in Paris and want to take a countryside daytrip, I would highly recommend it. Go early or on the weekdays to avoid the crowds, and they close from November-April.
