PARIS AND MONET

Sunday, April 19, 2009 (picture is of M & M in Monet's Garden)
Travel on the Ring of Paris…… talk about having your heart in your throat…. This was the same road and tunnels that Diana was killed on… thank heavens it was early Sunday morning and the road was dry with traffic lighter than during the weekdays. Was so glad when we turned off onto the A13, over the Seine River Bridge and we were on our way out of Paris. Will be happy to visit it again when we return on May 2nd, but then we will be on public transportation and not driving a car. Soon we had reached our destination of Vernon where our Formule One hotel for the night is located… but first… in was 10 AM and time to locate a church in town for Sunday Mass. On the way to church we were surprised to see a huge caravan of old Triumph cars all getting together for a car rally.
We had turned in to the parking lot for the Chateau de Bizy to stash our backpacks in the trunk while we were in church… going out we were stopped at the entrance by the line of old cars pulling into the lot…. Martha kept her camera going and captured many shots that will delight both our husbands. Following the church bells we heard ringing we were soon parked & into a lovely old church for a High Mass of almost 2 hours.

Leaving church we followed the few directions we had for the hotel and with luck we did finally locate the Formule One. The McDonalds sign nearby helped us not only locate the hotel but finding our Orange internet not working we went back to the McDonalds to send an “arrived okay” email to our husbands. Then we were off to find Giverny a small town back up the Seine River where Claude Monet spent many later years of his life. In this town we will find and tour his Gardens and Home where so many of his water lilies paintings were done. The flowers in the gardens were so beautiful it will be hard to decide which photos to keep and which to delete. Know that Martha will have many pictures in her slide show on her blog so be sure to check them out. Was interesting in his home to view the large entry room downstairs that he also used as a studio. A large photo (6’x10’) of him in this room was on one wall…. The furniture and everything was the same as at the time of the photo… only the many paintings were reproductions of his famous paintings that are hanging in famous art gallery’s worldwide, many of them we will see when we tour the L’Orangerie museum in Paris.

Time for an Glace (ice cream) treat as we walk back to the car then we will drive down to the Giverny church and cemetery where Monet and his family are buried. This church has several sites where British Airmen are buried from WW2… one grave has a group of seven that were killed together….. the town buried them…. And after the war their families placed a marker telling the story of seven friends who died on the same day.

Tomorrow we leave for Cann where we will stay for three nights to visit the
World War 2 battlegrounds, memorials and grave sites. Today it’s been so good to see flowers again. We missed them while in Reim, as that city did not seem to have the beautiful planting that we had been use to in Beaune. Also this afternoon that sun has come out again to warm us as we walk …. A lovely way to end a beautiful day of flowers, sunshine and the company of my twin as we stroll arm and arm along the gardens and water lily ponds of Monet. Au revoir