This morning's adventure was a trip to Giverny which contains the gardens that inspired some of Monet's most famous works. Last night's preliminary online research told me that it would be an easy metro trip to the Saint Lazare Gare, a 45 minute train ride to Vernon, and then a 3.5 km bike ride from the Vernon train station to the gardens.
The morning started early (alarm went off at 6:30am) since I wanted to catch the 8:20 train to Vernon. Despite the early wake up time, I managed to find my way through the metro system and up to the "Grande Lignes" area of the train station on schedule - the schedule I created last night using my research :). I bought my ticket and found a seat with 5 minutes to spare.
The train was pretty crowded- 80% were tourists all heading to the same place. As I sat down next to the window, a young guy asked if he could take the seat next to mine. Seeing how crowded this train was, I didn't see why not. A few minutes after the train started moving, he fell a sleep - a deep sleep. A head to the shoulder, mouth open kinda sleep. As I was watching the scenery move outside the train window, I noticed that the dude reeked of alcohol... mind you, it was 8:30 in the morning. Thankful it was only a 45 minutes ride and he would be asleep for most of it.
Eventually, the train ticket taker came by. She looked at him sleeping then smiled at me and the women sitting across the aisle. We both smiled back and rolled our eyes at this guy. The train ticket taker nudged the dude to get his attention. No movement. She nudged him again. Nothing. Shook his arm. He grimaces but is still asleep. That is when I noticed that this dude also had a black eye and fresh scrapes on his face and knuckles. He had a rough night/early morning. She finally wakes him. He is cranky. It takes him a while to find his ticket and the train official gives him a hard time - it did look like he might have tried get on the train without one. Ten minutes later, the official is satisfied and the dude is back asleep. Fast asleep again. I couldn't wake him at my stop. I had to climb over him to leave. Maybe next time, I will buy a first class ticket.
The mass exodus from the train towards Giverny made it easy to find my way. Be a lemming and follow the crowd. I read last night on TripAdvisor that there is café directly across from the entrance of the station where you can rent bikes. And as I emerged from the station, I saw their big signs that advertised their bike rentals. I give them 9 euros and showed my id. They gave me a bike, a lock, and a photo copied map to Giverny. The post said how easy it was to rent a bike. They were right. The post also said the map was easy to follow and bike path was easy to find. They were wrong about that.
Looking at the map it seems like an easy route. Go straight through town, after the bridge, turn right. What it doesn't show is that right before the round about end of town, the street turns one way. Are tourist suppose to ride against traffic? That goes against all my sensibilities, so I followed the cars as they turned to follow the traffic patterns and then ended up on the same main street that was one way in the wrong direction. I decided to walk my bike on the sidewalk just until the bridge. After I crossed the bridge I saw a sign that said Route de Giverny. Logic tells me that this should be the road. But as I peddled my way down the street, it just didn't feel right to me. The road was narrow, there was no shoulder and large tour buses were driving (very fast) down this road. That is not the road described on the post, and that is not a road for tourist on bikes. Even though I saw a bunch of tourist on bikes take this road, I turned back to retrace my steps. After looking at the map and comparing it with what google maps was showing me (thank goodness for internet!), I eventually found the small tiny road that I was suppose to take. And if you squint hard while looking at the map, you can see that the highlighted road is indeed Voie Andre Touflet and not Route de Giverny. This route was much better. The voie was a proper bike path- well paved, straight, flat, and idyllic. That was fine until the bike path stops after biking only for 20 minutes and there wasn't a useful sign anywhere. I was left with two choices. I could get on the Route de Giverny or take Rue Claude Monet. Well hopefully France was the kind of place that named a road because someone lived there. And it was indeed! Taking Rue Claude Monet was right decision. The road wasn't in perfect condition, but it did meander through a quaint village-- at least I am going to pretend that. In reality the quaint houses that lined this street were all the bed and breakfasts for tourist who want to stay in Giverny.
There are two gardens in Claude Monet's house. Clos Normand, the large garden in front of the house, is an explosion of colors and shapes. Poppies are strewn through out. Roses climbing walls and trellises. Flowers I'd never seen before in corners around trees. There are large bold flowers, like peonies, as well as small dainty ones like snow drops. The second garden, Japanese inspired, is more serene. It has far fewer colors, but many shades of green. The pond in this garden is full of the famous water lilies. Both gardens are a photographers dream. I could spend many mornings in different seasons snapping away photos there. Now since I take better photos than writing creative descriptions about them, I just posted some photos of the gardens below. Enjoy.
The crowds, not surprisingly, are crazy. There are very few part of garden where you aren't walking in a single file. They do keep people at the edges of the garden, so with some creative angles you can take photos without a million tourists posing. You can also go into the house, but line was easily 50 persons deep and I had lost patience at this point. Seeing the interior of the house is put on my to do list for later. This is one of the advantages of being a tourist where you live. When you say, you can always come back, you really can.
I decided to bike back and have lunch in Vernon. Navigating back was much easier than getting there- though biking around round-abouts is still daunting. I don't know how people do that.
I found a brasserie in town where I had mussels and fries - a bit heavy for lunch, but I can't resist them when they are on the menu. The restaurant wasn't very busy. An older woman was seated beside me. She was dainty and made cheerful conversation with me and the other woman seated at the table next to hers. My french was understandable but it definitely could use some improvement. She talked about the weather, asked where I was from. I tried to explain where the Philippines was located. I'm sure she knew where. It is unfortunate that "Philippines" is one of the words I can not pronounce in French, so I think she just didn't understand me.
They brought my mussels with the recognizable black pot with the smaller one inverted and covering the shell fish. They were small but good. It had a creamy sauce with fennel. As the waitress was bringing the bread basket, she dropped a few pieces on the floor (right next to me) proceeded to put the bread pieces that fell back in the basket and then onto my table... well, that is one way for me to stop eating carbs.
Well, that is it for day. Not bad for my second Saturday in France. Will definitely come back to Giverny, but not during peak tourist season.
Lesson learned for today:
1) Always bring your smart phone
2) Be sure you have enough credits on it
Some useful links:
Calendar showing which flowers are blooming when in the garden
