When I was in high school, we had an Impressionist unit in French class each year.  My sister liked the impressionists, and so I knew a little about Monet already, but every year it was so fun to learn more about the style of painting, the subjects, and the painters themselves. The unit normally ended with a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago and lunch at Au Bon Pain (always delicious). One year, I did a project on Monet and when I saw the pictures of his house, not to mention all of his beautiful water lily paintings, I knew that Giverny was a place I wanted to go in my life.

After Robin, Amy and I galavanted around Paris, we got a train to that beautiful town.  There really is not much there but Monet stuff, cafés, and ridiculously picturesque Bed and Breakfasts, but we had a marvelous time.  After a lunch of croissants and cheese, we headed to Monet's house, as Rick Steve suggested, during the lunch hour.  I could not believe for gorgeous the garden is there.  Impressionist painting is known for looking almost blurry because the colors blend together, and Monet did the same thing in his garden.  Everything was in blocks of color that gradually moved into the next color in the spectrum and you don't realize it until you notice that you're surrounded by red poppies and not pink peonies anymore.  I have never seen gardening like that.  Across the road are Monet's famed water lilies.  He was really interested in Japanese artwork, and he used that in his gardening as well.  Surrounding the river were thickets of bamboo trees which gave everything an enclosed feeling as if the river was separate from the rest of the world.  It certainly seemed that way.  Monet would spend hours out there in a row boat painting, which sounds nearly as wonderful as kayaking and reading.  

Inside Monet's house, there are photographs of what the house looked like when he lived there.  It truly looks the same.  There is a picture of Monet standing in his bedroom surrounded by his paintings, and you can see in the picture the paintings that are in front of you.  There were also a few Renoir paintings, which make me really happy, of course.  Having resisted buying everything in the gift shop, we headed out to a cafe for a few cafe cremes, and we ran into a group of Americans touring around the country.  It turns out the guy I talked to is from Chicago (noticed the Cubs hat, excellent choice) and was on a culinary tour to study French cuisine.  How fantastic is that?

We walked around town and visited Monet's church and grave, and then headed back to the hotel for a dinner of lovely crepes and ice cream.  The next morning, we headed back to Paris to catch our train back to my town.

Our gorgeous B&B room.

I love walls like this.

Monet's garden was even Impressionistic, everything in blocks of color.

Blue and purple section.

In the yellow and red section.

Crazy beautiful iris.

The lilies!

I would totally live here.

Monet's kitchen.

What just happened?

Goûter.

Perfect weather here.

Enormous tree trunk.

Enormous Monet.

Jump shot.