We spent two days northwest of Paris in late June, primarily to explore the house and gardens of Claude Monet. Rooming in the nearby town of medieval Vernon, we strolled the town and peeked into the cathedral, enjoying a quiet evening cooking, exploring, and relaxing.
In Vernon, the Collegiate-Notre Dame Church is a beautiful example of medieval architecture. Built from the 11th to the 16th century, it is in part Romanesque and Gothic, with incredible impressionistic stained glass windows from the 1970’s. These were installed to replace the ones destroyed during World War II, and remind the viewer of Monet’s paintings from nearby Giverny.
The Foundation of Claude Monet encompasses Monet’s house, flower gardens, and water garden. You can buy a ticket for the morning or the afternoon, and have 3 hours to tour the home and gardens, which is plenty of time. Inside the picturesque house are numerous paintings, a charming kitchen, and window views of the flowers outside. The gardens are a wealth of blooms in every color and incredible scents, and its easy to get lost inspecting them. Volunteers walk the flower beds, pruning and watering as you traipse around.
A short underground tunnel takes you to the Japanese bridge and water garden; this is perhaps the most iconic section of the grounds. Here you see the blooming water lilies in the pond, bridge in the distance, and you can almost feel Monet, as he would’ve sat, painting the scene.
The thing is, the place is crowded, with multiple tour buses dropping passengers as soon as the grounds open, and so the visit is not exactly relaxing. Its hard to envision the quiet solitude Monet likely experienced, as you navigate around and through chattering crowds angling cameras and phones at every turn for another photo. The pond is beautiful, if you can look past the crowds. We were able to enjoy ourselves, but we spent significantly less time walking around than we would have, had it been less busy.
Not far from Giverny, we stopped after our garden tours to climb around in a nearby castle built into a limestone cliff. We bought a baguette and cheese from a nearby boulangerie, then trekked around the towers of Château de La Roche-Guyon, to enjoy incredible views of the Seine and the cliffs. A perfect afternoon discovering France.
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