Jen & Angel in Europe: Giverny Day 1 - Monet's Gardens and House, Bayeux

10/18/2014

Monet's Gardens

Our breakfast today was the almond croissants from E LeClerc. 4 for 3.20 euros. So cheap. So delicious!

Just look at all that almond cream stuffing!

Baby thought last night’s chocolate bar run at E LeClerc was a bargain too good to miss, so instead of checking out of the hotel and going to Monet’s House this morning, we first made a pit stop at E LeClerc.

…Where she bought out their inventory of Lindt’s dark chocolate pistachio bars. These bars are expensive in Paris, so why not stock up in the countryside?

We drove to Vernon, a 40 minute drive from our hotel. If you take the train, the stop to Monet’s gardens is Vernon, then you have a ½ hour walk to his house in Giverny. There are a lot of bike tours as well, if you’re into that kinda thing.

As we drove into Giverny, Angel noted that there aren’t many signs telling you how to get to his house. If we had chosen to walk it, I’m pretty sure we would’ve gotten lost. And there aren’t that many people out today because it’s low tourist season and all the tourists we did eventually see came via tour bus.

In Breaking Bad, there's an episode where the CEO of Madrigal commits suicide in his headquarters in Germany. He took the emergency kit off the wall and went into the bathroom, where he proceeded to electrocute himself. When I first saw the episode, I was like, what kind of place would supply an emergency kit like that? I've never seen those kind of kits before, especially just hanging off walls. Well, here at Monet's gardens, there happened to be one:

Thousands make the pilgrimage per year to see Monet’s gardens—it’s the most visited garden of its size in the world. I thought Monet employed gardeners to achieve his vision of a dream garden, but it appears he did it all by himself. Crazy! He once said, “There’s only two things I’m good for in this life. Painting and gardening.”

We went into his pink-and-green-shutter house, where we saw his vast collection of Japanese lithographs circa the 1850s. It would seem he was completely enamored with Japanese art. There are some lithographs depicting Japanese wearing Englishmen clothing, which I guess is because Japan finally opened up to trade with the outside world around that time.

While we were in the gardens, Mom wondered how come water lilies were found here, as she thought they were an Asian plant. I guess Monet’s love of orientalism explains it all?

Monet's House

Monet's famous water lily pond:

Although we read online that the water lilies are not in bloom this time year. It’s true. ;( At least the weather was nice, if not bordering hot. We severely over-packed with winter clothes, when so far, all we needed was a light jacket. There were a couple budding water lilies and the garden is gorgeous, but I guess if you really, really want to see the lilies in full bloom, you gotta come during summer.

With the mosquitoes and over-crowded tourist season.

Yay! A water lily is blooming! You can see that tiny, tiny white bud in the center:

Another one!

Monet grew chickens in his garden, so I guess they want to maintain the house as it was back when he was alive:

The Foundation of Claude Monet recreated Monet’s studio based on pictures of Monet in his studio back then. His art (reproductions) hang on the wall, as if they’d never been moved. Angel saw a sewing room (go figure) and she loved his kitchen. Very French countryside.

We spent 1.5 hours in Monet's gardens and house. We might have spent more if the water lilies were in bloom, but alas, wrong season. So we hopped on the car and drove 3 hours to our next hotel in Bayeux. It was still sunny out when we checked into the hotel, so we decided to go walking around the village. Where there's cows just sitting by the sidewalk (which made Angel super happy. She loves cows, though God knows why, as she's allergic to grass):

Dad perked up during the latter half of the car ride to Bayeux, because this is the stuff he’s really interested in. D-Day, WWII, Normandy…he’s in his element here. I can’t tell you how many ginormous tomes he’s read about the events surrounding this time period. He can spout off just about everything about WWII, so when we were walking around the town of Bayeux, and there was a boulevard named “June 6,” and I asked, “What’s June 6^th?” …let’s just say he was scandalized. Very scandalized.

We saw the cathedral in Bayeux that was built in 1070 and consecrated by William the Conqueror:

All around Bayeux, you see flags of different Allied nations that helped liberate France during WWII:

We also saw the Bayeux War Memorial, which is the cemetery for the British soldiers who died here during and around D-Day. The Allies arrived on the coast of Normandy on 6/6/1944 and by nightfall, the British arrived in the outskirts of Bayeux. The following day, Bayeux was the first town in France to be liberated from the Germans. Over 4100 British soldiers are buried here.

We walked all around the outskirts of Bayeux looking for Carrefour and E LeClerc, as we saw in the hotel’s tourist brochure that all the supermarkets are closed on Sundays (tomorrow). Which means we gotta stock up on food for the next two days. Unfortunately, this E LeClerc didn’t have the almond croissants ;( They were really tasty!

In the E LeClerc in Louvriers yesterday, we were sticker-shocked by how much canned foie gras cost. We thought it was just a one-off thing. Turns out, the price of foie gras has gone up.

Significantly.

Almost tripled from the last time we were in France two years ago! The cheaper-priced ones have gone up double in price. For dinner, we ate at the E LeClerc food court. Dad wanted pizza and I was thinking in my head, “You come to France for pizza?”