Claude Monet's House and Gardens

Giverny, France

Our visit Sunday April 3rd 2016

With some of the euros that Dorothy's brother Tony gave to us for Christmas, we had a really good day out here. Thank you Tony xx

The Monet Gardens did not appear to us to be gardens in the usual sense but more of a collector's gardens. Monet collected plants from around the world, from his friends and other collectors. On arriving here we decided to wander around the gardens first as the weather was so glorious.

Our first views of the garden in front of the house...................

There are large numbers of what we would call bedding and border plants, planted row upon row of similar or complementing colours...........

and the spring blossom was at it's best..........................

as were the spring flowers...................



We left this garden and walked through the underground tunnel to the other side of the road where we entered "The Japanese Garden"
which was set amongst small streams..............

surrounding a beautiful lake.....................




at one end of which you can see the little bridge that Monet painted....

The camellias and azaleas where just beginning to come into bloom but it will be another couple of weeks before the rhododendron begin to bloom

We returned to the other garden and made our way up to the house................

The house is perhaps unusual with many paintings hanging on the walls as if on display for sale in a gallery. The house is a very simple two story house with a veranda.

Inside, we passed through a small sitting room painted in startling blue and white and made our way to Monet's art studio. The room was flooded with sunshine and paintings hung from every wall.
Flash was forbidden in this room and so it was impossible to capture a photograph but we did manage to photograph this painting....

From here we made our way upstairs, first to Monet's bedroom............

from where you got the most beautiful view of his garden............

then on to two further bedrooms..................

A second staircase led us back downstairs to the dining room................
This photograph does not show how YELLOW it was!!!!!

And then on, into the very BLUE kitchen.................
***** can you spot the fridge? !!
It is on the back wall, right side of the photo, blue and white, with dried flowers on the top!
Blocks of ice went in the left-hand side (from the top) and the rest of the cabinet was insulated.

The kitchen was especially sunny, with a door out onto the veranda and must have been a joy to work in.

These last two rooms were vivid and startling to the eye after coming from the relative darkness of the upstairs rooms!

From the kitchen we came out onto the veranda and back into the glorious sunshine................

and the fragrance of the beautiful hyacinths...............

The end of a most enjoyable day.

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