Yesterday, Gui Gui and I got our act together and headed west to the town of Giverny. Giverny is a small down on the edge of Normandie that is mostly famous for housing the house and gardens of Claude Monet, one of the better known impressionist painters.
We left just after noon, and drove the hour or so it took to get there. I love driving this route towards Normandy in the Spring time, because everything is becoming green and the Colza flowers are in bloom. Colza is a type of oil, and the flowers are a retina-burning shade of yellow. Against a blue sky it is truly spectacular.
Anyway, we arrived in Giverny, wandered around, and had crepes for lunch, and cokes which cost 4.50 a piece. I had a hard time not complaining about this, and as I saw Gui Gui's eyes glaze over with disinterest, I switched to English so he wouldn't have to pretend like he was trying to listen. Anyway, we finally got into the gardens which were awesome. It was jam-packed with flowers, mostly tulips.
The weather was beautiful, and although it got a little cloudy, there was no rain. We went into Monet's house, which was, interesting, but as we were too cheap to buy the guide book, we just wandered around looking at the Japanese paintings. (This confused me at first, because I didn't realize there was an exhibition, and I just assumed that Monet REALLY liked Japanese art...)As I've said before, France really does Spring well. I don't want to admit how impressed I am, but, the green trees and flower blooms even make the Seine look beautiful (dead bodies and pollution aside). I also realized, to my pleasure, that the lilacs are out in full force. They are so perfumed, I can smell the bushes before I see them. I am very rarely inspired to take pictures of anything, but I have found myself reaching for my camera more and more in the last few weeks.
I hope it never stops.
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