Vernon-Giverny

April 6, 2026

At about 11:30 we sailed from La Roche Guyon to Vernon-Giverny. The sun was out and the weather got warmer, in fact, just about a perfect temperature in the 60s.

It was a beautiful sight to see the small villages along the way and also the many swans.

We had our lunch in the restaurant Le Pigalle.

I am not an oyster fan but many passengers are – they were refilling these constantly

The riverboats stack up against each other and the ones on the far end have directions for the passengers to walk through the others to get to shore. Ours was by itself, not one of these three

These balls you see on the trees are mistletoe

Giverny was the home and working studio of Claude Monet. Our guide was the same gentleman as this morning, Martin, and he gave us a lot of information about the site and about the artist.

Monet moved here to the countryside as a practically penniless artist who could not afford to live in the city anymore. He was really a city person and resisted the move. He moved when he was 43 years old and lived here the rest of his life. He died at 86, one hundred years ago – 1926.

We first visited the famous gardens. I was here with our son Mark over 25 years ago and it was impressive then – still amazing. If you are not garden people, you may be bored with all the photos and I will only post some of them.

One thing to mention, we found out last year that Easter Monday is a huge holiday here in France, and the lines of visitors here on such a beautiful holiday certainly reflected that. We moved through the gardens with lots of space as it didn’t feel too crowded there. Going through the house was another story. We had a long wait and didn’t have a chance to visit the gift shop before we had to leave the site. Some of our tour groups didn’t even go through the house.

The tulips, rhododendron, azaleas, hyacinths, pansies and other spring flowers were in full bloom. There is something wonderful to see here in summer when the roses and wisteria are in bloom but today was just beautiful.

We had a fairly quick walk through Monet’s house. He was a collector of Japanese art and there are thousands of pieces in his house. Others are in the museum.

Taken from the second floor window, the house gardens, not the previous water gardens

Spotted on our way back to the ship. There used to be a bridge here

We had a bit of time to relax before the welcome gala reception where we got to meet the heads of all of the departments and the talk about the next day’s tours with our cruise manager, Monty – found out that is what he likes to be called, not Richard!