Family vacation in France: Day 6 in Paris

It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them.
– Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter

There are many day-trip destinations from Paris, depending upon how you create your itinerary – Versailles, Chartres, Giverny. We had planned an overnighter in Versailles, but no such trip planned for either Chartres or Giverny. We decided to take a bus tour to Giverny. In retrospect, I would have included an overnighter somehow to Giverny. The bus tour roundtrip was longer than our actual time in Giverny, especially with the traffic getting back into Paris, and I would have loved to have spent time in the town of Giverny, where Claude Monet is buried and the streets are lined with many shops, including antique shops. Next time!

The print shop where we purchased our etching of the Paris park chairs. That’s Jacob and Isabella, and I’m peering in the window again.

We didn’t have time to stand in line for the Catacombs in the morning because we were off to a late start, so we walked around the neighborhood. We wandered into F. Charbonnel, a shop for engravers, lithographers, and woodcut/linocut artists, because we saw an etching of the park chairs in the window. We purchased the etching, an “aquatinte,” titled “Aux Tuileries” by Corinne Lepeytre. Aquatinte is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching. In intaglio printmaking, the artist makes marks on the plate that are capable of holding ink.

From the bus window, a view of the French countryside outside of Paris.

A medieval bridge that was bombed out during WWII, right before the town of Giverny.

After a quick lunch near the Louvre, we boarded our tour bus to Giverny, which took about 1.5 to two hours for the 50-mile trek. We got there about three in the afternoon. Once we got into the garden, we were wall to wall with other tourists. It was also very hot. The crowds thinned out after an hour or so, and we were able to enjoy parts of Claude Monet’s enchanting home, beautiful garden, and surreal waterlily pond. In 1883, Monet, his wife Alice, and their blended family of eight children settled in the pink and green farmhouse, and he spent some 40 years at Giverny.

Every imaginable color of dahlia was in Monet’s Garden.

A cheerful bright dahlia in Monet’s Garden.

I think this is an onion. Whatever it is, I love it and have seen it all over Paris. I’d love to grow this in my garden.

The grand alley that splits Monet’s garden in two and leads to his farmhouse.

Commemorating my painting as an undergraduate of the grand alley with a photo of me beside it.

I’ve long admired Monet’s water lily paintings. Seeing them in person at the Orangerie Museum takes one’s breath away. And being in his beloved garden – especially for this gardener! – was magical (once the crowds thinned, of course). At every turn, we came upon different kinds and colors of lilies and dahlias and flowers I’d never seen before. The garden is symmetrically laid out in beds. A “grand alley” splits the garden in two and sports arches of iron trellises with climbing roses all the way down the alley. I had to take a picture of this. When I was at UC Davis and thought I was going to minor in art, I took a painting class taught by the famed painter, Wayne Thiebaud. Our last assignment was the “imitate a masterpiece.” I immediately thought of imitating an Impressionist painter because I thought it would be easy for me to do, given that painting was a major weakness of mine (drawing is another story). At any rate, I chose Monet’s entrance – the grand alley – to his Giverny farmhouse. Needless to say, it was a disaster and it was embarrassing to put it up against my classmates’ amazing imitation masterpieces. I put down my brushes and paints after that class and didn’t pursue the minor. But being at the entrance of the grand alley, I surely appreciated the beauty Monet saw and the desire to immortalize such beauty with his paintings.

Even the outside of the farmhouse is colorful!

Selfie with Isabella in front of the farmhouse.

The house is pretty amazing – colorful, full of paintings and his beloved Japanese prints, homey yet grand. I loved walking through the rooms. I loved the yellow dining room and the blue kitchen. I loved the warmth of the bedrooms, and his study where I picture reading books and writing and being creative.

One side of the dining room – the hearth and more Japanese prints.

The cheery yellow dining area.

Paintings in the study. The walls are full of paintings.

Another part of Monet’s study. It’s an enormous room.

One of the cozy bedrooms.

A view of Monet’s Garden from a bedroom on the second floor.

After touring the house and the gardens, we took the pedestrian tunnel under the main road to get to the Water Garden. I think we all took a million pictures of the Japanese bridges, the weeping willows, the pond full of life and water lilies. We actually got some pictures without tourists in it, no small feat. I could have stayed here for hours, just sitting and gazing at the colors, the light, the reflections in the water. It’s very peaceful. We didn’t have much time for the entire tour, but I’m glad we came. The town and the gardens demand another visit!

Monet’s Water Garden. Almost no tourists in this photo!

Weeping willows, lilies, and water lilies.

Close-up of the water lilies.

The Japanese bridge in the background from our vantage point of another bridge.

A burst of pink flowers amid the water lilies in Monet’s Water Garden.

No tourists in this picture of Monet’s Water Garden.

Reflections of a brilliant sky and clouds in Monet’s Water Garden.

More reflections in Monet’s Water Garden.

Isabella in Monet’s Water Garden.

When we arrived back in Paris, we got tickets for the Batobus water taxi, which does a loop on the Seine, stopping at all of the major monuments and museums. This was something Isabella wanted to do. We caught it at the Orsay Museum dock and sailed through Saint-Germain-Des Prés, Notre-Dame, Jardin des Planties,Cité de la Mode, Hotel de Ville, the Louvre, and then we got off at Champs-Elysées in search of dinner in that area. We ate dinner at Le Ponthieu (51 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 75008, Paris) since we were going to walk to the Eiffel Tower to take night photos. Isabella and I had confit canard, which was very good. Our poor waiter, who apologized for knowing little English – and we apologized for our lack of French – was running around waiting on all the tables. We were burning up, despite having our table near the open patio. It must have been in the 80s at nine in the evening! We left him with a nice tip for trying to take care of us.

An excellent duck confit and the best, creamiest potatoes au gratin ever.

Approaching the Eiffel Tower as the sun goes down close to 10 in the evening.

So many people were out taking photos of the Eiffel Tower at night. We took some amazing pictures and left before eleven. The taxis were charging exorbitant prices for the straight shot back to our apartment, so we stubbornly said no and walked the entire way. We walked mostly along the Seine to avoid traffic, but also to enjoy the people who were dining picnic-style along the waterfront and those who were dancing and frolicking at riverside restaurants. As I walked on, I kept thinking how I would have loved to have lived this kind of carefree life in my twenties! My feet were tired by the time we reached the Orsay Museum. We stopped on the wooden foot bridge so David could take more amazing photos of the Eiffel Tower. It was midnight by the time we got back to our apartment. It had to have been the hottest night in Paris for us thus far. But such weather allowed us to enjoy the very long walk from the Eiffel Tower to close to Notre-Dame Cathedral. I need to find out the distance so I can see how many steps we took! At least such a walk is burning the calories from all that good food we are eating.