Another day, another Monet
Le jeudi 7 juin
With thoughts of impressionist bohemia still fresh in my mind after my visit to Montmartre, I embarked on an excursion to see where the Father of Impressionism himself resided in Giverny. Claude Monet’s abode in this quaint little town is where he painted his world-renowned versions of les nymphéas (water lilies).
I awoke bright and early to catch the metro to Trocadero. I am grateful to know how to use the metro system. As companies like Uber and Lyft have become more popular in Paris, less visitors are using metro. Sadly, I think that not experiencing the metro chips away at the cultural experience of Paris. It is also a much more reasonable mode of transport at 1,90 euro per trajectory. However, rider beware! There has been an increase in metro police patrolling at transfer stations to catch those who are abusing the system intentionally or unintentionally, be it reusing old tickets, hopping the tourniquets, etc. (I became victim to this rigid patrolling on my metro ride home from the excursion to the tune of a 60 euro contravention. More on that later.)
As our bus pulled into the town of Giverny towards the direction of Claude Monet’s home, the small houses became older, the gardens more quaint and English-style with less structure and more varieties of plants and color. I grew excited. Our tour guide ushered us in and then we were allowed to visit the gardens and the home at our leisure. She mentioned that we were lucky because we were visiting at just the right time in June when the water lilies bloom for only two weeks or so. Here are some photos. Spoiler alert: everything is GORGEOUS.
I walked through the crowded gardens and tried to take minimal pictures, remaining quiet and inhaling the fragrance of all the flowers, just as I’m sure Monet would have wanted me to. Tourists swarmed and snapped photo after photo; their clicks and voices reverberating over the pond. I sat on a bench, took in the natural calm, and then made my way outside the edge of the gardens to the house, hoping to find an alternate entrance into the home with less people. There were no ropes forbidding entrance, but I am pretty sure I entered at a wrong spot because I heard “Faites la queue!” (“Make a line!”) from an older gentleman behind me. Oops. I put my head down and just continued in past the security lady; there was no way I was going to turn back and face the crowd of whoever hated me for my discretion. I apologize, sir.
Each room of Monet’s home had walls of different colors - the dining room yellow, the kitchen blue with a contrasting set of copper pans hanging on the wall. I felt inspired.
Our tour didn’t end in Giverny. We headed to Versailles for an afternoon tour in the hot sun. Although tired, I wasn’t going to miss Versailles on this trip to Paris. For the last several years I have been studying the lives of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI through documentaries, and I had to see the opulence of this chateau first hand. Upon entering the gates of the castle, I could understand immediately why this display of luxury by Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI caused such rage amongst France’s citizens at the time, the majority who were poor, desperate, and starving due to an extremely cold winter and Louis’ new inflated tax on bread. The lavish, in-your-face lifestyle of the naive young king and queen definitely contributed to the rise of the revolution. The vastness of the grounds is alarming. How many people did it require to maintain and build such expansive grandeur? Our tour guide said that the artist who painted one of the room’s ceilings actually took his own life due to the stress of acquiring and paying for the blue paint for the ceiling.
I couldn’t help but think of Kim and Kanye West who had their wedding at Versailles. Hopefully they have had their history lessons about the last king and queen of France and understand that there is a price to pay for unnecessary displays of extravagance and gluttony. LOL love ya, Kim and Ye.
I had my own price to pay on the way home from Trocadero. When entering the turnstyle at my transfer stop and putting my metro ticket in the slot, the button beeped red, the metal bar blocked me, and I turned around to figure out the problem. The gentleman behind me said, “Oh just go” in French and let me in on his ticket, both of us passing through the same bar. I thanked him and trotted down the stairs to the next line before hearing a fervent “Madame! Madame! Madame! Monsieur! Monsieur!” Did I drop something?
When I turned around, a man opened a black wallet to display a badge like they do in the movies. A woman came over, showed the same badge, and explained to me rapidly that I was on camera for going through on the same ticket as the man behind me. I handed her my ticket, she swiped it, and explained that this ticket was for one trajectory only and had already been used that morning. She demanded 60 euros. I tried to explain in French that I didn’t know (Je ne savais pas) that the ticket was an aller-simple (one-way) and not an aller-retour, that I was a tourist (Je suis une touriste!). This did not work. After much dismay, I paid her 60 euros. I had a brand new ticket in my wallet that I had purchased for a future trip at 1,90 euros - why couldn’t she have just accepted that or asked me to pay for one at the ticket window? I really didn’t know that my metro ticket was being overutilized.
I had to look on the bright side after paying an amount that could easily cover four meals on the trip - a success in this situation is that I was able to communicate completely in French and understood all that was explained to me in a somewhat heightened, emergency situation. My affective filter did not block my comprehension nor my production of the language (thanks, Krashen). Additionally, getting a metro ticket and not “getting by” on the tourist card made me feel as though I belonged to the metro community. Just like they say in San Francisco - you haven’t truly lived there until you’ve gotten your first parking ticket. (In this case, une contravention de metro).
Like I say, it’s just another day, another Monet.
Alana
With thoughts of impressionist bohemia still fresh in my mind after my visit to Montmartre, I embarked on an excursion to see where the Father of Impressionism himself resided in Giverny. Claude Monet’s abode in this quaint little town is where he painted his world-renowned versions of les nymphéas (water lilies).
I awoke bright and early to catch the metro to Trocadero. I am grateful to know how to use the metro system. As companies like Uber and Lyft have become more popular in Paris, less visitors are using metro. Sadly, I think that not experiencing the metro chips away at the cultural experience of Paris. It is also a much more reasonable mode of transport at 1,90 euro per trajectory. However, rider beware! There has been an increase in metro police patrolling at transfer stations to catch those who are abusing the system intentionally or unintentionally, be it reusing old tickets, hopping the tourniquets, etc. (I became victim to this rigid patrolling on my metro ride home from the excursion to the tune of a 60 euro contravention. More on that later.)
As our bus pulled into the town of Giverny towards the direction of Claude Monet’s home, the small houses became older, the gardens more quaint and English-style with less structure and more varieties of plants and color. I grew excited. Our tour guide ushered us in and then we were allowed to visit the gardens and the home at our leisure. She mentioned that we were lucky because we were visiting at just the right time in June when the water lilies bloom for only two weeks or so. Here are some photos. Spoiler alert: everything is GORGEOUS.
Each room of Monet’s home had walls of different colors - the dining room yellow, the kitchen blue with a contrasting set of copper pans hanging on the wall. I felt inspired.
Our tour didn’t end in Giverny. We headed to Versailles for an afternoon tour in the hot sun. Although tired, I wasn’t going to miss Versailles on this trip to Paris. For the last several years I have been studying the lives of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI through documentaries, and I had to see the opulence of this chateau first hand. Upon entering the gates of the castle, I could understand immediately why this display of luxury by Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI caused such rage amongst France’s citizens at the time, the majority who were poor, desperate, and starving due to an extremely cold winter and Louis’ new inflated tax on bread. The lavish, in-your-face lifestyle of the naive young king and queen definitely contributed to the rise of the revolution. The vastness of the grounds is alarming. How many people did it require to maintain and build such expansive grandeur? Our tour guide said that the artist who painted one of the room’s ceilings actually took his own life due to the stress of acquiring and paying for the blue paint for the ceiling.
I couldn’t help but think of Kim and Kanye West who had their wedding at Versailles. Hopefully they have had their history lessons about the last king and queen of France and understand that there is a price to pay for unnecessary displays of extravagance and gluttony. LOL love ya, Kim and Ye.
I had my own price to pay on the way home from Trocadero. When entering the turnstyle at my transfer stop and putting my metro ticket in the slot, the button beeped red, the metal bar blocked me, and I turned around to figure out the problem. The gentleman behind me said, “Oh just go” in French and let me in on his ticket, both of us passing through the same bar. I thanked him and trotted down the stairs to the next line before hearing a fervent “Madame! Madame! Madame! Monsieur! Monsieur!” Did I drop something?
When I turned around, a man opened a black wallet to display a badge like they do in the movies. A woman came over, showed the same badge, and explained to me rapidly that I was on camera for going through on the same ticket as the man behind me. I handed her my ticket, she swiped it, and explained that this ticket was for one trajectory only and had already been used that morning. She demanded 60 euros. I tried to explain in French that I didn’t know (Je ne savais pas) that the ticket was an aller-simple (one-way) and not an aller-retour, that I was a tourist (Je suis une touriste!). This did not work. After much dismay, I paid her 60 euros. I had a brand new ticket in my wallet that I had purchased for a future trip at 1,90 euros - why couldn’t she have just accepted that or asked me to pay for one at the ticket window? I really didn’t know that my metro ticket was being overutilized.
I had to look on the bright side after paying an amount that could easily cover four meals on the trip - a success in this situation is that I was able to communicate completely in French and understood all that was explained to me in a somewhat heightened, emergency situation. My affective filter did not block my comprehension nor my production of the language (thanks, Krashen). Additionally, getting a metro ticket and not “getting by” on the tourist card made me feel as though I belonged to the metro community. Just like they say in San Francisco - you haven’t truly lived there until you’ve gotten your first parking ticket. (In this case, une contravention de metro).
Like I say, it’s just another day, another Monet.
Alana
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