(France) – Giverny - Tips and tricks

Giverny is a small French village 80 km to the west of the capital city Paris, within the valley of the river Seine and the northern region of Upper Normandy. The village is best known as the rural retreat of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840-1926).

(France) – Giverny  Garden

Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 with his family, including his second wife and 8 children, living and painting here until his death in 1926. The village surroundings and the gardens of his house formed a great part of the inspiration and subject matter for his paintings. It was after the move to Giverny that Monet began his famous Séries of paintings, repeatedly rendering haystacks, cathedrals and waterlilies from his garden pond in his own unique Impressionist style.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

What to see there

- Monet's House (Fondation Claude Monet), 84 rue Claude Monet, tel 02 32 51 28 21, open April-October Mo-Su 9:30 am - 6 pm, admission €8.00, €5.00 students, €4.00 disabled, under-7s free, wheelchair access available - e-tickets can now be purchased online to avoid queuing - the house is quietly eccentric and highly interesting in an Orient-influenced style, and includes Monet's collection of Japanese prints. There are no original Monet paintings on the site - the real drawcard, is the gardens around the house - the water garden with the Japanese bridge, weeping willows and waterlilies is now somewhat iconic. Monet's house has the obligatory gift-store attached, designed to help you part with your money in exchange for all manner of things Impressionist

(France) – Giverney Garden - Claude Monet's House

- The Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny , 99 rue Claude Monet, tel 02 32 51 94 65, open May - October Tu-Su 10 am - 6 pm, admission €6.50, €4.50 12-18s and students, €3 7-12s, under 7s free, wheelchair access available - the museum replaces the former Musée d'Art Américain. It proposes temporary exhibitions.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

- The Natural Mechanical Museum, 2 rue Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, Phone: 02 32 21 26 33. 27620 Giverny. Association under 1901 law, founded by the Guillemard brothers: Jean-pierre, René and Gérard currently run restorations and exhibitions with the help of an enthusiasts team who devoted their time and known-how to the Patrimony preservation. The museum origin is a private collection of steam internal combustion engines; founded in 1955 by the Guillemard family a GIVERNY resident's since generations. Former threshing entrepreneur and blacksmith ADOLPHE Guillemard has transmitted to his children his know-how and passion for the vintage mechanies. Along years, purchasing, donations of engines pile-up awaiting for the needed parts or just a time to restore.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

Since 1982 the number of collected items inereased due to closing of workshops, factories or mills. The preservation of these engines was a rescue task, numbers of testimonials items already gone. In 1990 the collection find home in the actual local where the engines are in permanent show, installation of the Carels 1908 diesel engine weighting 28 tons keep the team busy for months on overhauling and restoration; it becomes in 2003 the world bigger old running diesel engine.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

The best time to come to Monet’s

Monet's garden is incredibly beautiful from April to October. Flowers varieties are blooming one after another so that the garden changes gradually with the seasons while keeping its colors and brightness.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

The peak period in frequentation is May-June, Summer is a bit more quiet and Automn very pleasant. In Summer you will enjoy the beauty of all annual flowers and of the famous Nympheas. In September and October the garden is a feast of giant flowers of splendid colors.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

Giverny Monet’s garden

The Two Gardens

There are two parts in Monet's garden: a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road. The two parts of Monet's garden contrast and complement one another.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

The Clos Normand

When Monet and his family settled in Giverny in 1883 the  piece of land sloping gently down from the house to the road was planted with an orchard and enclosed by high stone walls.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

A central alley bordered with pines separated it into two parts. Monet had the pines cut down, keeping only the two yews closest to the house to please Alice.

From this Clos Normand of about one hectare, Monet made a garden full of perspectives, symmetries and colours.

The land is divided into flowerbeds where flower clumps of different heights create volume. Fruit trees or ornamental trees dominate the climbing roses, the long -stemmed hollyhocks and the coloured banks of annuals. Monet mixed the simplest flowers (daisies and poppies) with the most rare varieties.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

The central alley is covered over by iron arches on which climbing roses grow. Other rose trees cover the balustrade along the house. At the end of the summer nasturtiums invade the soil in the central alley.

Claude Monet did not like organized nor constrained gardens. He married flowers according to their colours and left them to grow rather freely.

With the passing years he developed a passion for botany, exchanging plants with his friends Clemenceau and Caillebotte.  Always on the look-out for rare varieties, he bought young plants at great expense. "All my money goes into my garden," he said. But also: "I am in raptures."

(France) – Giverny  Garden

The water garden

In 1893, ten years after his arrival at Giverny, Monet bought the piece of land neighbouring his property on the other side of the railway. It was crossed by a small brook, the Ru, which is a diversion of the Epte, a tributary of the Seine River. With the support of the prefecture, Monet had the first small pond dug ; even though his peasant neighbours were opposed. They were afraid that his strange plants would poison the water.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

Later on the pond would be enlarged to its present day size. The water garden is full of asymmetries and curves. It is inspired by the Japanese gardens that Monet knew from the prints he collected avidly.

In this water garden you will find the famous Japanese bridge covered with wisterias, other smaller bridges, weeping willows, a bamboo wood and above all the famous nympheas which bloom all summer long. The pond and the surrounding vegetation form an enclosure separated from the surrounding countryside.

Never before had a painter so shaped his subjects in nature before painting them. And so he created his works twice. Monet would find his inspiration in this water garden for more than twenty years. After the Japanese bridge series, he would devote himself to the giant decorations of the Orangerie.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

Always looking for mist and transparencies, Monet would dedicate himself less to flowers than to reflections in water, a kind of inverted world transfigured by the liquid element.

The Japanese bridge

Monet had it built by a local craftsman. By the time the garden was restored the bridge was too damaged to be saved. It had to be rebuilt by a firm from Vernon. It is made of beech wood.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

The wisterias have been planted by Monet.

Visit

500 000 visitors discover Monet's gardens each year during the seven months that it is open.

To prevent people from treading on the plants, and thus retain the garden's beauty, the inner alleys are closed to the public. Visitors walk on the side alleys and can walk all around the garden to admire all its perspectives.

To get to the water garden you go through an underground passage (at the time of Monet it was necessary to cross the railway and the road). You will step on the Japanese bridge and explore all the hidden recesses of the water garden.

(France) – Giverny  Garden

Taking pictures is permitted in the garden, but only from the walkways. Picnics are forbidden. Dogs and other pets are not admitted.

Restoring Monet's house and garden

After Claude Monet's death in 1926, his son Michel inherited the house and garden of Giverny. He did not live there and it was Monet's step-daughter Blanche who took care of the property. Unfortunately after the Second World War the house and garden were neglected. In 1966 Michel Monet made the Academie des Beaux-Arts his heir.

In 1977 Gérald van der Kemp was appointed Curator  at Giverny. André Devillers, who had the opportunity to go with Georges Truffaut - a distinguished gardener often invited to Monet's table - helped him reconstruct the garden as it was by the time of the master. Many contemporaries of Monet testified also.

(France) – Cladue Monet's House - Dining Room

Almost ten years were necessary to restore the garden and the house their former magnificence. Not much was left. The greenhouse panes and the windows in the house were reduced to shards after the bombings. Floors and ceiling beams had rotted away,  a staircase had collapsed. Three trees were even growing in the big studio. 

The pond had to be dug again. In the Clos normand soil was removed to find the original ground level. Then the same flower species as those discovered by Monet in his time were planted.

Thanks to generous donors, mostly from the USA ,the house was given a facelift. The ancient furniture and the Japanese prints were restored. Then the visitor areas were fitted out.

The property has been open to the public since September 1980.

(Wiki Travel, Giverny)
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