Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Vernon and Giverny with friend/colleague Julia. It was a great day with great weather and an easy 45 minute train ride from Paris to Vernon.
If only Julia and I were both feeling better than 50% the day would have been perfect. Of course, it was all due to the two of us going out after work Friday and not calling it a night until 1 a.m. However, the many glasses of wine were warranted since we went directly from work to Forum des Halles to Go Sport to buy a tent and sleeping bags. Okay, pick yourself up off the floor - yes, I wrote that I bought a tent and sleeping bag. This is for the Springsteen concert Julia and I are going to in July at the outdoor music festival Vieilles Charrues in Carhaix, Brest (France) (caution - music plays when you open that website!). Of course, I have only been camping once before and it rained so hard that we packed it up and went to a local motel! Fingers crossed for July!
Anyway, we left work at 17:30 and after walking through the underground maze that is the Chatelet Metro stop, fighting through the crowds of people at des Halles (and there are A LOT of people there), and buying a tent, we stopped at Cafe Pont Neuf on Quai de Louvre and enjoyed some white wine and a charcuterie plate. We then had enough motivation to walk over into the 6eme arrondisement, closer to Julia’s place, with the tent and sleeping bags, and stopped at a local cafe that Julia loves. Somehow it went from 20:00 to 01:00 before we knew it!
So, Saturday morning and a 10:20 train departure came earlier than I preferred. We met and left from Gare Saint Lazare and were in Vernon by 11:10. We wandered around the town trying to find a place for lunch - of course, nothing that we wanted (i.e. pizza) was open until Noon. But, we stumbled upon Our Lady Collegiate Church and went inside - very nice, typical town church, and the organist was rehearsing. Begun in 1072 in Norman Romanesque style, the final structure was finished in 1610 (I think). It was damaged during air raids in WWII, which shattered all the stained glass. But, what was very nice was that instead of replacing the windows with clear glass, they put in more modern, colored stained glass windows. The rest of the town is nice with some very old buildings that are severely slanted. And, the town is on the Seine which is quite nice and wide here - picturesque and refreshing.
We decided to follow the advice of the Giverny website and walk to Giverny from Vernon. It is a lovely walk - you are definitely out in nature and away from the city - all you can hear is the rustling of trees and the birds.
Thanks to the advice of another colleague, we bought our entrance tickets online beforehand which meant we did not have to wait in the obscenely long line and just went in through a side door. And walking to this side door was cool because you walked under a bridge of ivy/flowers/greenery and you could hear the hum of bees above you.
The gardens are stunning, especially now in June with all the rose bushes in full bloom. Of course, I have no idea what the flowers are besides ‘purple ball’ and ‘tall blue thing’. One problem with the gardens is that the walkways are so narrow and you are allowed to walk in any path you want (i.e. not on a conveyor belt tour from point A to B) that it gets very congested.
You have to go on a pathway under the street (what used to be the railway line) and walk up to the water lilies (les nympheas) and that surrounding garden. The restoration team has certainly done a good job because you really feel like you’re looking out on the same landscape that Monet himself saw.
I say restoration because when Monet died in 1926, he left the house and gardens to his son, but he did not live there. The grounds eventually became neglected and upon his son’s death in the 1960s, they were bequeathed to the Academie des Beaux-Arts. Renovation began in the late 70s and took 10 years - as the website says, trees were growing in the big studio in the house and a stairwell had collapsed.
We opted to take the bus back from Giverny to the Vernon train station because we were so tired by this point and the thought of walking 6+ km again was not pleasant. We went to a cafe and rehydrated while we waited for the train back to Paris - definitely plan your trip accordingly because the trains are NOT frequent in either direction - i.e. 2 to 3 hours between each.
Oh, and don’t get too accustomed to me posting about something so soon after it happens!
(more photos posted on Flickr via link on sidebar)
No comments:
Post a Comment