Monet's Garden, 1902 Cafe, Eiffel Tower

 

The group. Steve did a nice job of getting everyone in the picture with names.  It is helpful for me.

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel.  We had a tour with Richard with "Eye Prefer Paris"  when we were in Paris before. When we saw that he did private tours to Giverny, we signed up. We were picked up at the hotel at 9:15 am. We had a very good driver, Guillam. We were delayed slightly because after we had headed out I realized that I had left my phone back at the hotel!!!! How could I do that?  Luckily, we had not gone very far.  Richard gave us a lot of information about the area, Monet, and the garden during the 1 & 1/2 hr drive. We had an 11 am entry ticket.  We made it in time.  It was hard to believe that they were controlling the number of people, since it was very crowded.  It was hard to get pictures.

Richard

A few of my many pictures.  

We went into Monet's home.

A few years ago we did a wine and paint class and this was the painting we were copying. Here is mine.

Hmmm.  I guess I had too much to drink.

After visiting the gift shop we walked up the street, through the town.

Interesting art installation

We were back at the bus by 12:30 pm to head back to Paris.  

As we were driving, I asked about the white mountain peaks.  Guillam explained that it was all limestone and many buildings were actually built into the stone since it was a soft stone.

We stopped at a church & cemetery.  

We could look inside the church to see how it was carved into the mountain.

Interesting that they used ceramic flowers on the grave stone.  At least they last.

Look at all of the white cliffs.

Guilliam let us off at the Petit Palais, instead of taking us back to the hotel.

Guilliam & Richard

Guilliam

We had lunch at the 1902 Cafe inside the Petit Palace.  It had been one of Richard's recommendations. 

The cafe was a little disappointing because they were having some dishwasher problems so they were only handing out previously prepared dishes.  I had a small egg salad, a bag of chips and a glass of wine.  Jeanne had a small fruit salad.  Kris & Sharon each had a larger chicken salad and wine.  The ambiance was nice. It was perfect weather.

Petit Palais

Grand Palais across the street.

It was time to find the Metro for train #13 to head back to the hotel.  We got back to the hotel around 4 pm.  Since it was such a late lunch we weren't in any hurry for dinner.  We tried to get somewhat organized for tomorrow.  We did a little neighborhood window shopping.  Then Sharon and Kris came to our room for a glass of wine. Kris had made an 8 pm reservation at Le Passy restaurant in the Trocadero area.  We wanted to be able to see the Eiffel Tower with the twinkly lights after dinner.  We took the #6 Metro to the Passy stop.  It was very close to the restaurant.  

Kris had the shrimp stuffed avocado.

I had the steak with green beans and new potatoes.  It was very delicious.  Jeanne and Sharon each had a salad, Kris had roast chicken.  Jeanne and Sharon each had an ice cream dessert.

Kris and I shared a thin apple tart. It was yummy.

Then our waiter directed us to a place that would be good to see the Eiffel Tower.

It was lit up nicely.  We only had to wait about 5 minutes to see the twinkle lights come on.  They come on for 5 minutes on the hour every hour after sunset. We were there in time for the 10 pm display.

While waiting Jeanne noticed that she could see the elevators going up and down.  I zoomed in and sure enough, I could too. 

Sharon took this picture.

We took the #6 back to the hotel.

It was a full day.