Floral Dreaming in Giverny

” I perhaps owe becoming a  painter to flowers” – Claude Monet

I discovered Monet at university, when like so any students I brightened up my student room in my halls of residence with a Monet print purchased from one of the many vendors that used to come to universities selling posters in the 90’s!  Over the years I have continued to enjoy his paintings and have taken any opportunity to see them in real life at London Art Galleries

So, a visit to Monet’s house and garden at Giverny had been on my wish list for a very long time.  A trip planned for my birthday in 2020 was postponed, until finally we were able to go this year, as  part of a larger French adventure.  Having waited so long and read and heard so much about the beauty of Giverny, I was slightly fearful it would not live up to my very high expectations.  I need not have worried

Giverny is nestled into the pretty rural french countryside about 50 miles outside of Paris, so it is an easy day trip for those staying in the French Capital.

We had been advised to go early, so we had booked our tickets months ago for 9.30 on a Thursday morning at the end of our holiday.  After almost two weeks of sunshine, heavy rain was forecast for the day of our visit.  My visions of floating through the flowers in a sundress in the sunshine seemed to be disappearing as fast as the sunshine on our weather app.  I was not prepared to let that happen so we took a chance and went a day early to see if we could get tickets for the same day.  We could, and very easily too.  Maybe too easily because before we knew it we were inside without having had lunch.  There are  no lunch options inside the gardens and we had to make do with a 3 euro bar of nougat between us to keep us going for the whole afternoon. Once inside there was no way I was leaving!

Travelling in June before the school holidays we were able to easily get walk up tickets, how easy that would be in July or August I don’t know.  It turned out to be an inspired decision.  The weather was gorgeous, and as we didn’t go in until after 2.30pm,  visitors thinned out fairly quickly as the afternoon wore on.

The Gardens

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece” – Claude Monet

It is a garden of two halves and is on both sides of a road.  The garden surrounding the house known as The Clos Normand is filled with row after row of borders bursting with an abundance of cottage garden flowers.  Dazzling dahlias, delicately scented roses, sizzling lilies and towering hollyhocks.  There are splashes of colour from marigolds and poppies and the front of the house is surrounded by a huge bank of hot pink and pillar box red geraniums.  Swathes of fiery orange and yellow fill one border whist cool blues and calming purples fill another. There is so  much to see we barely knew where to begin.

Everything is in abundance, and the gardeners are at work tending it constantly.  The garden is in constant flux and is likely to look different every week.  We found pleasing differences when we had our second visit at the beginning of the day in the rain.  Colours were more vibrant, lime and acid greens in the foliage seemed to sing after a dousing of rain.  The garden felt fresh and alive and the scent of the flowers in the early morning was fresher.

It is not possible to wander up and down all the lanes of borders but it is perfectly possible to see everything you wish to see by taking lots of time and retracing your steps more than once.

A short walk through an underpass takes you to the water garden, a garden who so many of us know from Monet’s paintings.  Monet based this garden on his love for all things Japanese and built the famous Japanese bridge at one end of the  water garden.

The bridge is of course a focal point and has the potential to be very busy as everyone of course wants a picture on it.  However, by taking your time and following the paths around the garden it is quite easy to find peaceful moments.

Swaying willow branches and fronds of water loving plants line the water gardens and the reflections and mood here is one of calm and tranquility.  On a hot day the shade from the many trees is more than welcome.  At the end of June, the water lilies were just beginning to unfurl and gave us a little taster of what was to come.  There are a few places to sit and take it all in along the walkways in the river gardens.   As you gently meander around the lily pond lush and dense with flower and foliage, you might easily feel you might have just stepped into one of Monet’s paintings.

It takes only a small leap of the imagination to visualize Monet complete with beard and hat, sitting in a small wooden rowing boat, easel propped up and paintbrush in hand

The House

Because we also had our reserved tickets for the following day when rain was forecast, we decided to stick to the gardens on our first visit and visit the house the following, rainy day.  Another inspired decision as it happened.

The house is long and painted in a soft pink.  Dark green shutters, the colour of leaves makes it feel like an extension of the garden.  It is not huge and so it can easily feel crowded with the volume of people wanting to see where Monet lived and worked.

There will be those who choose to step into each room, take few snaps and move on.  Of course this not the best way to absorb it all.  With time and patience it is very easy to really soak in the paintings and the furnishings which were a part of Monet’s daily life.

Monet’s studio is a light filled room where the walls are covered with very good replicas of the paintings which adorned his walls. It is quite hard to know where to look first, there is so much to see. The originals are now mostly in galleries and museums. Upstairs is Monet’s bedroom and the bedrooms of his wife Alice and stepdaughter Blanche.  In Monet’s room paintings from fellow impressionists line the walls, and in his private bathroom hangs a Cezanne of which he was reportedly especially proud.

The blue and white tiled kitchen complete with copper pans stacked on shelves, and the sunny yellow dining room are equally striking. The dining table and dressers are bathed in golden sunshine and vases filled with flowers from the garden bring the outside in.  This is a room for friendship and food and flowers.

Many people especially those on tours will spend a couple of hours visiting and feel they have done Giverny.  We spent probably 5-6 hours there in total, over the course of our two visits.  There is just so much to see, and by walking past a flower packed border just once, you could not possibly to take it all in.  Much better to meander and wander, to go back and forth, soak up the beauty and peace and bask in the creativity which inspired such beautiful works of art.  If you really want to experience the garden in different lights then go twice, although this had not been our original intention a late afternoon followed by an early morning visit really enabled us to get the best of our precious time there.

Visiting Monet’s house and garden really was the fulfillment of a dream.  It was all I had expected and more, and most importantly I was able wander around them in a floral sundress.

“I must have flowers always always” – Claude Monet