Look Out France! Here I Come!--Part Five Giverny and Versailles

Sunday April 15, 2012--Paris, Giverny, and Versailles 

We booked an all day tour to Claude Monet’s House and Gardens in Giverney and Versailles this day, and it wound up being a good thing. When we checked into our hotel the night before, we found out that the Paris Marathon was scheduled to be run this morning. Many roads and subway stations would be closed, so it could make getting around the city a bit challenging for a good part of the day.

But since we had to be at the tour departure point by about 8:00 that morning, we didn’t have to worry too much about that.  So after having a continental breakfast of bread, cheese, and deli meat at our hotel, we left our hotel to walk to the tour office.  We walked through the park near the Louvre to get there, and it was quite pleasant and quiet there before 8:00 in the morning.

When we arrived at the tour office, they told us that we would be departing from a different location down the street due to the marathon. Luckily we got their early so we had plenty of time to get to the new departure location.

We soon boarded our bus and were on our way to Claude Monet’s House in Gardens. Giverny is in the Normandy area of France, and is about an hour and 15 minutes drive outside of Paris. Our tour guide gave us lots of information about the area we were driving through (most of which I forgot within minutes after she said it).

When we arrived at Monet’s House and Gardens, we walked as a group to the main entrance, where we received our tickets, which allowed us entrance into the house, the garden, and the lily pond that inspired Monet’s famous Water Lilies paintings.

We headed into the house first. We were only allowed entry into a small portion of the house, including Monet’s art studio, bedroom, kitchen, and dining room. There were replicas of many of Monet’s paintings in the studio, so we spent several minutes in there looking at the art work.




Claude Monet's House

 



The view from Monet's bedroom

 

 

We then spent some time walking around the garden. There were lots of flowers in bloom, which surprised me a bit since the temperatures on our trip were only in the mid-40’s to mid-50’s. I bet the gardens are even more gorgeous later in the spring when the temperatures are a bit higher.

 

 

We then walked over to the lily pond. The pond area was really beautiful. There were a couple of beautiful bridges (including the famous Japanese bridge), and lots of winding pathways. It would be a great place to just sit and reflect for a  while if you had a lot of time, which we didn’t.

 

 

While we stood on one side of the pond taking pictures, I saw some American teenagers planking on the railing of the bridge. It is always so good to see American teenagers behaving properly and representing our country so well (sarcasm). I was secretly hoping that they would fall of the bridge and into the pond because I’m evil like that.

 

American Teens Behaving Badly
 

We headed back over to the garden area, and went to the gift shop. They had a lot of Monet prints, and some neat knickknacks featuring some of Monet’s recognizable artwork. Once we purchased our souvenirs, we headed to the parking lot to catch the bus. We had to walk through a small village with shops along the way, but we didn’t know it was there, so we didn’t really have time to browse in the shops.

Once everyone had arrived back on the bus, we drove to the small village of Fourge, where we would be having lunch at the le Moulin de Fourges. Our group was lead to a small barn near the main restaurant. We were sitting with really nice couples from Marblehead, MA, Wisconsin, and Chicago.  There was also a widow from Vancouver who was supposed to take this trip to France with her husband, but he passed away before they could take the trip. So she decided to still go on the trip by herself. We had a lot of nice conversation and laughs as we ate or dinner and sipped wine.



Le Moulin de Fourges

 

 

Our appetizer was on the table when we arrived. It consisted of some kind of salmon and cream cheese loaf, and rice with tuna flakes. Since I don’t eat seafood at all, I skipped this portion, but the others at our table seemed to enjoy it.

 

 

The entrée was chicken in a marsala sauce with mashed potatoes. The food was very tasty, and the mashed potatoes were very smooth and flavorful. I can’t remember what we had for dessert, and I didn’t put it in my notes, so it must not have been that good.

 

 

After lunch, we were back on the bus and on our way to Versailles. We arrived at Versailles shortly before 3:00 in the afternoon, and were lead into the building though an entrance for tour groups. We were given headsets so that we could hear our tour guide tell us about the history of Versailles and the rooms we visited.

 

 

The crowds at Versailles were insane. The smaller rooms were wall to wall people. It was really too crowded in there to really enjoy the palace. There were so many people crammed into the rooms that it was difficult to truly enjoy the beauty of the artwork and details in most of the rooms.

 

 

There were signs all over the palace saying “Beware of pickpockets” and it was easy to see why. There were so many people crammed into such a small area that it would be easy for pickpockets to slide a wallet or cell phone out of a pocket or purse. It would also be a great people for gropers to get some enjoyment.

Our tour guide took us through the rooms of the palace for about an hour and twenty minutes. She kept on telling us not to look at the floor because “it’s not the original floor, and it is ugly.” She also told us not to look at the chandeliers because “they are not the original chandeliers and they are ugly.” Oh, and she didn’t like the fact that they put electricity in the palace instead of lighting it by candles like in the old days. I’m grateful that they didn’t light them by candles because if there was ever a fire, it would be impossible to get the thousands of people crammed into the rooms of that palace out before the place turned into a pile of ash.

 

I'm a rebel. I took a picture of the ugly floor.

When our guided tour of the palace was over, we had about 45 minutes to use the restrooms and enjoy the gardens. Our tour guide assured us that would be plenty of time. So, we made our way to the rest room outside of the palace, and we weren’t the only ones with that idea. We got in the long line for the ladies room with dozens of other ladies. We found out from ladies coming out that there were only about five or six stalls, and none of them had toilet paper.

Lucky for me, I was prepared with a pocket pack of German tissues! We were waiting and waiting for the ladies room line to move, and it was moving very slowly. At the rate the line was going, we would be lucky to make it through the line in the 45 minutes we had (and there was no bathroom on the bus). 

As is usually the case in public rest rooms, there was no line in the men’s room. We followed the lead of some other women and used the men’s room, which also had no toilet paper. Thank you German tissues! It was one of the smelliest, messiest rest rooms I’ve ever used, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

The palace has hundreds of rooms, and approximately 3,000,000 people visit Versaille each year.  You’d think that they could give up some more space so that they had adequate toilets for the visitors. We saw they had more rest rooms in the garden area, but we didn’t know that when we got in the huge line at the palace.

We then walked around the garden for a bit. There was a long reflection pool that must have stretched a half mile. It would have been fun to walk all the way to the end, but we didn’t have enough time, so we just walked around the garden area closest to the palace, which featured a beautiful fountain and many statues.

 

 

We then made our way back to the bus to head back to Paris. Overall I enjoyed the tour with just a couple of complaints. While the restaurant we ate at was very good, it was 20 minutes in the wrong direction on the trip from Giverny to Versailles. We had to ride past Monet’s Garden again to get back to the highway to go to Versailles. It would have been nice if the restaurant was somewhere between Monet’s house and Versailles because we basically had to ride in the bus an extra 40 minutes to go to lunch. My other complaint was that the tour guide droned on and on too long in Versailles so we didn’t have enough time to enjoy the gardens. She should have had us out of that building in an hour instead of an hour and twenty minutes so we would have adequate time in the gardens.

When we arrived back in Paris, we walked back to our hotel for a short break. We then headed over to grab some dinner at the Café Mucha, which was at the Solferino subway station. We both ordered the omelet complete, which was a ham and cheese omelet served with French fries and salad. The omelet was excellent with lots delicious cheese and ham. It was one of my favorite meals of my trip, and I’m not even a big fan of omelets.

After dinner, we headed to the D’Orsay RER station to go to the Eiffel Tower. A train was just about to leave, and I wasn’t sure if it was ours or not, so we didn’t get on. Well, it was ours, and we should have gotten on because the next one wasn’t scheduled to arrive for 20 minutes. I wound up pulling out my subway map, and figured out another way to get to the Eiffel Tower, though it would require a change of trains. One of the trains we went on was completely automated--there was no driver. They had tall barriers set up on the platform so people wouldn’t fall onto the tracks since there were conductors to stop the train if someone jumped on the tracks.

We soon were at the Eiffel Tower. As soon as we got there, they lit up the tower.  It was better seeing it at night than it had been seeing it in the day light. It looks beautiful all lit up.

Sorry this picture is sideways, but I can't figure out how to flip it.

Looking up at the Eiffle Tower from underneath it.

It was a cold and windy night, so the crowds weren’t as big as they were the night before. We decided to wait in line to go up the tower. We waited less than a half hour to get our tickets. I originally wanted to go to the top, but it was so windy and cold, I had no desire to go up to the top that night. The view from level two was amazing, and it was windy and cold enough there that I was extra grateful that I didn’t go up to the top.



Just hanging off the Eiffle Tower

I got so cold that I wound up getting some hot chocolate at the snack shop. It was one of the best hot chocolates I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it was good because I was so cold or if it was good because I was drinking it in one of the most famous landmarks. Or maybe it was just plain good.

Since we didn’t know the train schedule to go back to the D’Orsay RER station, and didn’t feel like dealing with switching trains, we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel. We were back in our room and ready for bed after another long and busy day in France.