So you’re finally taking your dream trip to Paris… This is the first of a multi-part series of fun day trips or weekend trips(depending on how long you’ll be there!)

Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a French Impressionist Painter, and also pretty much my favorite painter, who did a lot of painting en plein air – outside. He's most well known for founding the Impressionist Movement at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. His, Impression Sunrise(see it here) was painted in 1874, was given the title because it gave an "impression" of the harbor, without the inclusion of fine details. 

THE MONET GARDENS AT GIVERNY, FRANCE

Monet’s Garden at Giverny is a beautiful, magical, fantastic place to visit while traveling to Paris, or Normandy, or just around Paris. There are two parts of the garden, one that abounds with stunning flowers, and the second (across the road, which you can reach by going through a little tunnel under the road) with the lily pond.

10 years after he moved to Giverny, he bought the property across the railway from his home (which is now a roadway) in order to expand the gardens and incorporate a large pond with a Japanese bridge.  The bridge is covered with wisteria, and surrounded by willow trees, bamboo, and the lilies (which became the subject of his multiple gorgeous lily paintings). 

You can find a list of all the flowers & trees at Giverny here.

VISIT:

Before you go, I recommend getting your tickets online (here) but you also need to decide if you want to see the house and the gardens, or one or the other, because they require different tickets.

Giverny is about an hour outside of Paris so it makes a great day trip, if you have time! I’d definitely schedule a whole day though.

You can get there by train, rental car, or there are several tour companies that will get you there, it all depends on what you’re most comfortable with, or what your price point is.

A really neat souvenir idea is grabbing a print from the artist along the street.

We ended the day at the gardens by visiting the ice cream stand on the way out to the parking area. To paraphrase my Mama: It was a perfect end to a dream realized.

Monet, flowers, and ice cream....

🍦They had me at ice cream.🍦