Monet's Gardens

Yesterday we went with a tour group (English speaking…..beaucoup americans!) to do a bike tour of Monet's Gardens. We took a train to Vernon. As soon as we pulled out of the train station it started pouring. Fortunately we'd thought to bring rain jackets. It stopped when we got to Vernon, so we walked to the opan air market, which was closing up, to get lunch. Instead we got baguette sandwiches at a local shop. After that we got outfitted with bikes. You can see a pic of me modeling the cruiser bike we used above.

Once we got our bikes, we headed out of town. Right away someone crashed that hadn’t been on a bike in years. After we got everyone on bikes we headed to our picnic spot, a park down by the Seine river. Unfortunately it was still very wet, so we sat on our rainjackets and dined on sandwiches. There’s a pic above of the “ugly duckling” that was begging everyone for food. He wouldn’t take it out of your hand, but would walk right up to people and stare at them until they gave up some bread. Just about the time we were finishing up, it started to pour. We took cover under a bridge for about 20 minutes until it let up a bit. Once it slowed to a drizzle we rode back over the bridge and out of town along a bike path. We rode for about 20 minutes, covering a whopping 3 miles, up a small climb to Giverny, where Monet’s grave and gardens are. After a quick peek at the grave we went to the gardens. They are all on the property where his house is. Apparently Monet was one of the few artists that managed to get rich while he was still alive. The first garden we saw was the water garden that’s the site of many of his paintings. Took a lot of close-up pictures of flowers there. Mind you, we had no idea what kind of flowers 95% of what we saw were, but they made for great pics. After the water garden, we headed over to the regular garden and took more pics. We saw a bunch of people going into the house, and discovered our tickets covered there as well, but it was hot and really crowded in there, so we got out quick. After that we tried to exit, but couldn’t find it. I kept following the exit signs only to get to a dead end, I thought. I asked a guard at the entrance where the exit was and was told to go through the souvenir store. I was quite pleased with myself that I was able to do all that in French. Those times are few and far between, considering that last time I had a French IV class was 18 years ago. By the way…..the English word “souvenir” is the same spelling as the French verb for “to remember”. Interesting, eh?

Ok….so after we finally figured out how to get out, we stopped in the café for a cappuccino for me and a kir (white wine & raspberry liquor) for Rich. My cap. was excellent because it was topped with a big dollop of Chantilly, the best whip cream you’ll ever have! Once we were warmed by caffeine and liquor it was time to get back on the bikes, onto the train, and home. Oh….and as soon as we got on the bikes for the ride home the sun came out. Even though it was a cloudy day, at least the rain had stopped once we got out from under the bridge.

When we got back to the apartment mom had appetizers of sausage & cheese. She said that was enough food for her, but Rich & I wanted more. We went to a seafood restaurant that had earlier looked promising, but after seeing stuff like “mackerel with sauerkraut” on the menu, we moved on. We wound up at a Japanese restaurant where we had an excellent dinner, while being entertained by an American bum across the street who yelled profanities at everyone….in engish. LOL! After dinner we walked over to the courtyard of Notre Dame, where there’s always something going on, especially on Saturday nights. On this night there was some sort of performer but all his talking was in French. We understood enough of what was going on, but not enough to keep us there for long. We got home around 11pm. and hit the sack. Whew!