Monday, Excursion Day - Giverny

The trip to Giverny (zhay-ver-nee) was quite the experience. We decided to not rush for the early train. We thought that leaving the house at 9am for the 10:20 train should be plenty of time. The metro to St Lazare station was easy but St Lazare is HUGE. We went up and down stairs trying to find the place to buy tickets for the train. We did finally find the right place and Jennifer stepped up to buy our tickets. 3 seniors and 1 normal. Kris is our only normal one. We got out to the right train with just minutes to spare. We could not sit together but at least we could sit. It was a 45 minute train ride and then a 15 minute shuttle to Giverny. Giverny is a cute little village.

We started at the museum of Musee des Impressionesmes. Just saw works of Bonnard. It was a small museum.

We went to Hotel Baudy for lunch. We had our best meal yet. It was very enjoyable.

I had the avocado salad, turkey with wonderful scallopped potatoes. The others had either a garden salad mutton brochette and salmon with rice. Dessert was apple pie, blanc fumage and creme caramel. And, of course, wine.

Then the walk through Monet's Garden. What a riot of color. It was hard to choose which pictures to share. I can see where Monet got his inspiration.

We took the shuttle bus back to Vernon where we caught the train back to Paris. Then the metro home. While we were at the station we went ahead and bought our train tickets for Chartres. Now that was an experience. The ticket agent knew no English so trying to specify what we wanted was a challenge but Kris rose to the challenge. We also had to buy another pack of 10 metro tickets.

We ended the day at Pietons for tapas. It was half a block from our place. Quite the happening place. Unfortunately, where we were sitting right by the patio people were rolling their own cigarettes and smoking. We did not linger long after eating. But the food was good. We have not run into many smokers. This is different than my previous trip to France.

Whew. What a fabulous day. It was nice that the weather cooperated. It was a little chilly when we got to Giverny but by the time we were going through the garden it was perfect.