Day 3 Rouen to Paris - Sid and Doris Bonkers and their Epic Journeys

In which Sid and Doris follow the Seine to Monet’s house and garden at Giverny and then to a small flat in the Marais, Paris.Hermann is gingerly piloted from the narrow underground car park and through Sunday quiet Rouen streets. The pelotons are out. Yesterday we saw a group on race light bikes with a tiny bit of luggage that might have come from Belgium. Chapeau or possibly hoed for the Flemish? Anyway, a great feat of legs.

En route to Giverny we saw three Corvettes, one with roll up lights, then a C4 and C6. Sorry we missed the meet. The other star of the day was a charming Simca Elysee in green. I bet the Chevrolets had an easier time of the hills around here than the Simca.

Giverny is completely vaut le voyage, as M. Michelin has it. You wouldn’t want more people so coming at a time of plague has paid off, no coaches. Although we were mostly outside we were asked to stay masked even in the garden but given the crowding everyone went along with it. The planting is fabulous as the pictures will go some way to showing.

[We took a total of about 16 photos, all using the iPhone and were therefore some thousands of pictures short of the average, judging by the activity of the other visitors. And in fact the garden photographs better with proper equipment, so Mr Google has helpfully assembled some finer pictures in this link here: pictures of monet’s garden D.]

Monet bought the house in 1883. There are two gardens, the Japanese inspired water garden with charming rills, lake and bridges, and another closer to the house set out in alleys which are like borders but not on the edge of anything. The planting is amazing and you do not have to like gardening to love being in such a garden.

The house and studios are delightful, and Mr Rabbit has claimed it as one of his. The house is not grand, though clearly had quite some staff to maintain. The many lovely pictures, which we assume to be copies, are a clue to Monet’s circle as well as his taste. There are many Japanese prints which he collected. The garden became more than a hobby and he swapped new discoveries with PM Clemenceau and fellow artist Caillebotte. (The Giverny village website has more to say and see.) So glad we came on a quiet day.

Monet was a magnet for other artists, many of them American, such as Willard Metcalf and Theodore Wendel at a time when thousands of US artists were coming to Paris many came to Giverny. Grocery shops were converted to hotels and some artists bought farms and made studios. They almost all left in 1914 and the colony faded away after Monet died in 1926.

His heirs failed to keep up the house and gardens. By the time Michel Monet left the estate to the Academie des Beaux Arts in 1966 the house was derelict and the garden almost unrecognisable. Since 1977 it has been replanted and the house rebuilt with much American money. Today it is second only to Mont St Michel in Normandy for visitor numbers at 500,000 over a seven month season or 10,000 a day, so it is probably producing an excellent return on investment. And the Mont is much larger and owned by multiple people. The village has set out a tourist trail which uncannily goes past many shops and cafes on the way to the Americans’ houses and the churchyard with the group grave of a Lancaster crew and Monet’s stone.

The photographic record forks here because while Sid was taking a picture of the only cars in the entire place, Doris had a cultural diversion by spotting three Chinese-speaking spouses having a crafty fag behind the loo block, and a sign inside the loos that implies that Giverny usually welcomes tourists from a wider range of backgrounds than we saw today.

In a moment of totally unjustified gardening hubris, S&D also spotted the only weed in the whole garden, one that is entirely familiar from their own lockdown gardening experience this year and is known by the technical name of Weedus Weedus, although they observed with some pride that their specimens are significantly larger.

And so to Paris, which soaks up 18,000,000 tourists in a normal year. Driving into the centre of Paris, well we’re glad its Sunday. The owner of the flat we are hiring has given no joining instructions and claims no knowledge of the booking, so parked up near the Pompidou Centre Doris gets it all sorted out. We make the acquaintance of the concierge, Marie-Jo, who is the sort of person to whom the word “spry” will be applied in about 20 years time.

Our evening walk takes us into a suddenly-busy area which looks to be full of locals. While most of France has been fairly strict on social distance and mask-wearing, these boys and girls may feel that they are young and/or they came through AIDS and will be OK again. It is loud like a seal colony and we steer our way cautiously through, not tempted to stop for drinks or dinner. Instead we opt for a tourist brasserie in a much more deserted area in front of the Centre Pompidou, watch the people and take on far too much very good pizza.

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