I need Monet's gardener!

Saturday 26^th April

We took a bit of a big detour today to go to Monet’s Garden at Giverny. It wasn’t open when we were in Paris so I’d slotted this is as something to do as we passed across the north of Paris – didn’t realise it was going to be quite such a big detour but we are both glad we did this.

We succumbed today to driving the motorways (not the tollways) so that we could cover the long distances and have time to do some sight-seeing as well in the day. Today we seemed to pass through mostly farming country and less populated that the earlier part of our trip. The canola is looking great and about waist height – not sure when harvest time is. There was also a lot of what appeared to be wheat but this was only about 1 foot high.

It  rained on and off most of the trip but cleared slightly once we reached Giverny. Maybe the inclement weather kept the crowds at home as we didn’t have to wait to get into the house and gardens. Wow! The colour in the gardens is just incredible. I want a garden like that. I think we came at a good time, one month into spring, as so much was in flower. The best thing was the wisteria was in flower across the famous bridge over the pond.  Just a few photos for a taste.

 

The famous bridge -
and I'm pretty happy with the colours in the photo.

More tulips - nearly at the end of their season

Beautiful colour in the Japanese maples.

Couldn't get the bridge to myself
 - lucky it was a quiet day.

What is the flower in the foreground
 - some sort of iris?

We stayed the night in Evreux in another of our chain hotels. Before heading to the hotel we drove the town up and back, and in and out, looking for a laundromat with no success. We asked at the hotel when we got there but they didn’t know where one was either and offered to do the laundry for us – no charge. That is great service for any hotel let alone a cheap chain hotel. Anyway, we headed into the main part of town for dinner and almost right next door to the restaurant we ate at was a laundromat – must have been the only street we didn’t drive down.

Dinner that got away!
It was the biggest snail I have ever seen.