Giverny, France

We packed up our belongings and set off from Disneyland Paris towards our next destination: Giverny! Our drive took us right through Paris. I spy the Eiffel Tower!

Located about an hour outside of Paris, Giverny is home to Claude Monet's gardens. The great artist spent his last and most creative years of his life cultivating both his gardens and his art here. 

Pink and green combos everywhere! Love!

How could you not be inspired in a place this charming?!

In 1883, Claude Monet and his wife Alice with their eight children settled into a farmhouse here. Monet was already a famous artist so he had the means to stay here and work. Ultimately, he would spend 40 years in Giverny and over that time he built a pastoral paradise complete with a Japanese garden and a pond full of floating lilies. 

The gardens feel like you've stepped into one of Monet's paintings. They're a little wild and messy, balanced and beautiful. 

The gardens are actually split into two areas. Half is a walled garden while the other half is known as the Water Garden. There is a handy pedestrian underpass to get you across the road between the two areas.

Coming up and out of the tunnel you emerge right into one of Monet's famous waterlily-themed paintings.

His Water Garden includes a couple Japanese style bridges over the pond with weeping willows hanging down over the placid water. 

Monet gardened like he painted, focusing on blocks of pattern and color. While we didn't visit at peak flowering season, there were still plenty of things in bloom for us to enjoy.

After Monet planted the gardens and various areas, he would paint them from every angle and every time of day in all kinds of weather. For him, Impressionism was really a study of light.

Back over in the Walled Garden we meandered through the paths of fragrant flowers. Monet cleared this land of pine trees and laid out symmetrical beds of flowers split by this "Grand Alley" down the middle.

The view out behind the Water Garden. From beautiful Japanese gardens to pastoral France in two feet.

Under the trees.

Chris and I wanted to sit down with paints and easels and get our Monet on.

Also on the property is Monet's house which is open to visitors.

His den with reproductions of the paintings that hung here while he was alive. The originals are all now in big museums around the world.

How awesome would it have been to sit and read or work or just sit and talk in a room like this?

There were pretty furnishings, lots of colors, and artworks, many originals, throughout the house.

Love this color scheme.

Monet's bedroom.

The view over the Walled Garden from the second floor of the home.

This yellow dining room is my jam.

I love that Fox and Jane are such good friends. While sometimes they are in cahoots and up to no good, at least they are up to no good together and having fun with one another. :)

Our family at Giverny, France on Sunday October 16th 2016.

Then we drove to Rouen, France to see all that we could see!