Morning at Giverney

I was an art minor in college and a big fan of the impressionist style of painting so when my husband told me that he had booked a tour of Monet's garden at Giverney as part of our 10th anniversary trip to Europe, I was thrilled. The iteneray of the trip was mostly determined by which places my husband had to go on business but he got us to Paris for a couple of days, one of which was the actual anniversary date. 

 The morning fo the tour, we got up bright and early to catch the tour bus.  We took the metro and arrived at the closest station and then ran to the bus company office.  We got there a little before it was time to leave so Rob decided to run grab some breakfast since we hadn't had time to eat. Although he tried to find a croissant or french pastry, good old McDonalds was the only place open.  Just as he got back, it was time to board the bus.

Our tour guide was a tiny French woman with a bright pink umbrella.  She was not at all elegant and certainly not dressed fashionably.  She was middle aged, plump and comfortable looking.  She looked like someone's aunt--good natured but no nosense.  She didn't keep up a running commentary but she did comment when something struck her fancy or when one of the tourists asked a question.

Rob and I munched our McDonalds as the bus went through downtown Paris.  We went through the traffic circle where the Arc de Triumph is.  WOW!  It's huge and the circle is big enough that supposedly 12 lanes of traffic can fit.  Mind you, someone in Paris decided that those tacky yellow lines that the rest of the world use to deliniate traffic lanes were unnecessary in Paris.  I'm told there is an traffic accident an average of every 7 minutes in that circle alone, but the streets look very chic and that's the important thing.  It was pretty hair raising to watch the traffic.  I think riding a motorcycle in Paris is actually a form of Russian roulette--I mean Parisian roulette.  I was heartily glad we were doing all of our travel on foot, by metro or by bus.

 Most of the time we were driving toward Giverney, we were in sight of the Seine river.  The countryside was surprisingly rural to me.  I'd never given much thought to what France was like outside of Paris but it turned out to be very lovely--lots of fields and pasture land.  The sour note was the rain that persisted in chasing us as we rode through the countryside.  It was my one chance to see Giverney and I wanted to stroll and take photos.  If it persisted in raining, I wouldn't be able to do either.

As we got off the tour bus, it was still overcast and I was praying for the sun to break throught so that my photos would turn out well.  On cue, as we purchased our tickets and stepped into the cottage garden, the sun appeared.  I was ecstatic.  The raindrops stood on the petals like diamonds.  Bees hummed merrily in every corner, spoiled for choice in the riot of flowers.  Every color and color combination seemed to be represented.  I saw familiar flowers in unfamiliar hues and exotic beauties tucked here and there.  Both of my grandmothers painstakingly grew roses when I was a child.  They would have been speechless as the riot of colors, the scents and the forms of roses that had been coaxed into becoming mini trees or threading through and over arches.  Fantastic!  The scents were so rich after the rain and even though there were so many, they all seemed to harmonize.  Monet was a horticultal artist as well.

My husband was so patient as I snapped photo after photo of the beautiful blossoms.  We then wandered over to the Japanese garden.  Monet painted that garden endelessly in his later years.  In particular, the waterlillies in the pond and the Japanese bridge.  It was like stepping into one of his paintings.  We wandered under the drooping willows, stood on the Japanese bridge and looked at the rowboats and then we studied the waterlillies, looking for one fully open.  We were early for the lillies, but it was perfect just the same.

We wandered around and took photos of the Japanese garden as well and then we wandered back to the cottage garden and went throught the cottage itself.  It was a wonderful house, full of color but homey too.  We were not permitted to take photos in the cottage but we purchased a book with photos of the interior to remember it and to show our children when we returned.  All too soon, the time to leave snuck up on us.  We strolled thorugh the village where so many of the houses were half covered in ivy and bordered by lovely flowers (though no other gardens approached the scale of Monet's).  At last we spotted the raised pink umbrella as our guide and driver stood by our bus to distinguish it from the dozens of other buses in the parking lot.  Next stop--lunch at a little inn then on to Versailles.

copyright Janna O'Donnell 2007

Due to technical difficulties, I was unable to put more of my photos from the trip into the article itself but if you will take a look at my images, there are many photos of some of the lovely flowers we saw.