Paris - Paying Homage to Monet in Giverny

The pond features a Japanese bridge, very photogenic

Visiting Claude Monet's home and garden in Giverny, France, is a magical experience. The massive garden is most impressive, filled with all kinds of flowers, from roses to irises, dahlias, tulips, sunflowers, wisteria and on and on... you can't help but be in awe of such a place. It's kind of an organised chaos.

Then the pond with the waterlilies, complete with the Japanese bridge helps you immediately see why Monet painted his famous waterlily paintings.

Monet's house is painted pink with green shutters

He lived at this house for 43 years, from 1883 until his death in 1926. 

I visited his home over 10 years ago and was so transfixed by the experience that I promised myself I had to come back if I had the chance.

So when I found out we were going to Paris, Giverny was definitely on the list.

The first time I went was part of a tour, and the tour bus took us directly there. So this time we were on our own and I did a bit of research, as Giverny is about a one hour away by train from Paris. There are a few blog posts explaining the process, which is pretty straight forward.

First check the train schedule, and we took the 10.12am train from Gare Saint Lazare to Giverny. 

I bought the tickets online, but it was quite a hassle to figure out how to scan the QR code for us to pass through the turnstile! Nevertheless, it was eventually sorted and we got on the train.

One of the rooms upstairs in the house

An hour later we got off the train found a mini electric open-air train in front of the station with a woman selling 10 euro return tickets per person to get us to Monet's home. It turns out her tour is 20 minutes, winding around some other landmarks, whereas a giant coach can take tourists to the house in half the time.

After we were dropped off at the parking lot, we still needed to walk another 15 minutes through the small village to the actual house. I bought timed tickets (12pm) ahead of time so we were able to go straight in (along with a lot of other people).

First up -- the house. There was a long line to get in, and it took a while for it to move because visitors were excited to take pictures of the first room, the gallery, which was filled floor to ceiling with paintings and photographs. 

The house, painted pink with a green trim, is large for 10 people, as Monet and his second wife Alice Hoschede-Monet had a total of eight children from previous marriages. While the gallery is quite large, as well as the bright sunny kitchen in yellow, the bedrooms are actually quite small.

A large stove with a beautiful tiled backsplash

Visitors can also see Monet's fascination for Orientalism, or things Japanese in particular, with Japanese prints in the kitchen -- including one of a women's bath house -- and others sprinkled around the home. There are also two ceramic sleeping Siamese cats.

However it's the garden that's much more interesting! The flowers are so photogenic, everywhere you look you can easily compose a nice photo. Some influencers are wearing dresses to take selfies.

The pond and waterlilies are in another area, which entails going through an underground passageway leading to a large pond surrounded by greenery, including large stalks of bamboo. Everyone flocks to the Japanese bridge, which is covered in green wisteria leaves; could you imagine when the wisteria flowers are in bloom? 

Off to the side of the house is where the gift shop is, and it does a brisk business selling all kinds of things Monet, from photography books to children's books about the artist, colouring books, scarves, T-shirts, and jewellery.

One can easily picture Monet painting this scene

We had to hurry through the gift shop because we had to catch the 1.40pm shuttle back to the village in order to get the 2.52pm train back to Paris. It's a pity there isn't another train after 3pm -- it doesn't come until around 5pm.

One tip we discovered is not to go on a Sunday -- almost all the restaurants in the area are closed! We managed to find one enterprising restaurant serving mostly pasta and pizza that was open. The pizzas we ordered were freshly made and delicious. 

Many other people who were at Monet's house the same time as us were catching the same train back. 

Nevertheless we arrived back in Paris around 4pm, invigorated and inspired by Monet's garden!

Claude Monet's home

84 rue Claude Monet

27620 Giverny