Giverny

It was almost dark when we drove into Giverny, and the town was having a music fest (we were hoping for classical, but it was rock and roll) so all the roads into town were blocked. Bummer. We figured we’d have a terrible time finding our hotel, but we saw the street name after just one turn around, and drove right to it. What a sweet house! Monsieur and Madame Bonchard decided to rent out a couple of their rooms, and we were lucky to have found it on the internet. We unloaded our bags and set out for town to have dinner. We found a restaurant with a bunch of French tourists, but we had a nice meal and wound our way back to the hotel at about 10. We were so tired we didn’t even hear the rock and roll concert that was only about 2 blocks away. The next morning we woke up early, had breakfast in their little porch area and strolled off to see the house and garden of Claude Monet. We entered via the gardens and stood, stunned at all the colorful flowers. There were thousands of them, in all different colors and sizes and would have been almost aglow if the sun had been out. But at least it wasn’t raining, and we were grateful for that, especially when we crossed under the road to his lily pad garden with those famous bridges. We visited his house, cozy, warm and inviting. I loved the exterior most of all; it was pink with green trim, very cheerful, and quite the perfect backdrop for all the flowers. He even had chickens and turkeys, evidently, because we not only saw them at his home but also in one of his paintings at the Museum Orsay in Paris of this house with turkeys as the main focus.