You will be met at 9am in the lobby of your Paris hotel by our guide and driven by private sedan or minivan to visit Giverny and the surrounding region.
Giverny - Monet's Home - Claude Monet's gardens at Giverny are like his paintings. Flowers were his brushstrokes, a bit untamed, but part of a carefully composed mosaic. Monet spent his last (and most creative) years (1883-1926) at Giverny.
All kinds of people flock to Giverny. Gardeners admire the earth moving landscaping and layout, botanists find interesting new plants, and art lovers can see paintings they've long admired come to life. Visitors enjoy discovering the house where Monet spent half his life and seeing the environment that he painted.
In 1890, Monet started renovating his garden, inspired by tranquil scenes from the Japanese prints he collected. He diverted a river to form a pond, planted willows and bamboo on the shores, filled the pond with water lilies, then crossed it with a wooden footbridge. As years passed, the bridge became overgrown with wisteria. He painted it at different times of day and year, exploring different color schemes. In the last half of his life, Monet's world shrank to encompass only Giverny. But his artistic vision expanded as he painted smaller details on bigger canvases and helped invent modern abstract art. Monet was the greatest visionary of his generation.
Flowering Guide at Giverny
April - Tulips, pansies, forget-me-nots, narcissi, aubrietas, cherry and crab-apple blossoms, daffodils
May - Irises, peonies, rhododendrons, geraniums, wisterias, azaleas, wallflowers, daisies, delphiniums
June - Roses, poppies, clematis, tamaris
July - Roses, nasturtiums, ageratums, zinnias, nicotianas, busy lizzies, verbenas, dahlias, rudbeckias, salvias, gladioli, cleomes, cosmos, sunflowers, helianthus, water lillies (start)
August - Dahlias, roses, cosmos, rudbeckias, hibiscus, nasturtiums, water lillies (end)
September - Carpets of Nasturtiums, asters, dahlias, cosmos, rudbeckias