Wednesday, May 26, 2010

A painter of flowers

I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~ Claude Monet

Holidays for many of us are usually a very short break or in my case one night away in Normandie, however although the Normandie border is only 15 minutes away our destination was towards Paris, a four hour drive.

We oohed and ahhed at charming old timbered houses topped with thatch, we commented on the pretty villages. Eventually we stopped for an enormous inexpensive lunch in an Auberge, sadly the staff were holding back on smiles and conversation.

Apres Lunch. The land flattened out en route looking very like the flat lands of Lincolnshire in Angleterre. Just before arriving at Monet's house we drove through soft rolling countryside very like Bucks/Berks across the channel. The light traffic got even less busy. At 16.00hrs we arrived at our destination as some visitors were leaving, we took in the perfumed walled garden, the beautiful water garden and Monet's wonderful comfortable house.
Monet's beautiful home
The house was opened to the public in 1980 after much restoration to the property, however photographs of the interior are forbidden.

I thought that the tulips would have finished flowering but I was wrong.

Gorgeous



You will often see the word interdit for forbidden

Half timbered buildings are called colombarge

To be continued.................off to paint!

9 comments:

LadyFi said...

Thanks for posting! You've left with stunned with the beauty of Monet's house and flowers - and wanting to see more!

DAB said...

WOW! This is my kind of place :)))

ArtPropelled said...

Oh look at those tulips!One day I will visit Monet's house. There's something so exciting about a road trip. Its the feeling of childlike anticipation that I relish. Glad you enjoyed your break even if it was short.

French Fancy... said...

Oh I've always wanted to visit Giverney and now I will see it through your fabulous photos, Blu. I'm waiting for part two - and you must do lots of parts with ALL of your pics.

Clive said...

Somewhere we have always wanted to go ...

Beautiful photos!

Unknown said...

Wonderful photos Blu. WOW what a house.

Lovely to see your site and thank you for the invite on twitter.

Have a great day.

Blu said...

Thank you for all the lovely comments folks.

Ken Devine said...

Hi Blu
The last time I visited Monet's Garden was when Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France. We were trapped in Paris as he cycled to victory. The next day we visited Giverney but the gardens were closed. There was no way in the world that I would leave without seeing the place, so we climbed the wall and walked around the gardens and lake. We didn't stay too long as there was an American film crew there but it was quite an experience.

The year before, we visited and toured the house. Isn't it an amazing place?! It's one of those places that I'm bound to visit again but I'll check the place is open first.

Carol said...

That is somewhere I have always wanted to visit....thank you so much for sharing it and I can't wait for part two :-)

C xs