Monet's garden

The highlight and main purpose of Claire and I spending a weekend in Paris was this "must do" for gardeners. On Sunday we travelled by train from Paris to Vernon and then by bus to Giverny to visit Monet's house and garden, fulfilling one item on my long list of "must dos". The garden peaks in summer but seeing it in mid Spring was fabulous in its own right and arguably gave a better overall view of the structure as it was uninhibited by dense foliage. You could also gain a good sense of the promise of things to come with the fat buds and emerging fresh juvenile growth on vines, roses, perennials and deciduous trees and shrubs.

The slideshow below is a selection of the large number of photos taken.

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The house presides over the garden which is in two main sections - the geometrically laid out beds and the waterlilly pond. Our visit was punctuated by a shower of rain which meant we visited the waterlilly pond twice in two quite different light settings. On a macrp and micro level there is a seemingly endless set of visually compelling images.
The garden was not as extensive as I had imagined though it is intensely planted and would take a small army to keep in order - definitely not a low maintenance affair. I took over 200 photos and had a good time playing with close up shots. Many of the photos are for ideas in my own garden, particularly colour combinations of plants. The large number of visitors were easily absorbed along the many paths.
My favourite parts of the house were the kitchen and dining rooms - particularly for the colour schemes and as photography was not allowed I bought the postcards.
[I am experimenting with using Slideshare to embed a slideshow rather than link to an external web album. They each have their pros and cons and I have not decided yet which is generally better for my purposes .]