WEATHER: Foggy and 13C to start and then it cleared up and 17C and blue skies
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Monet Gardens
BUMMER OF THE DAY: A lot of people in the Versailles Apartments
BUYS OF THE DAY: 2 Queen pencils for my god-daughters
WORD OF THE DAY: What a great day
MOVIES WATCHED TODAY: Welcome to the Riley’s
WHAT WAS ON THE MENU:
Gourmet salad of mesclun and crudetes with sautéed foie gras and raspberry dressing
Grilled jumbo shrimps with safran basmati rice and basil pesto
Apple sorbet with Calvados
Grilled Angus beef fillet mignon with butter, string beans with onions and bacon, grilled tomatoes and hand cut French fries
Ice bomb River Baroness with red berry sauce
As winter makes its way into France, the sun is just up when we have to disembark for our tours in the mornings. The sun rose at 8.33am this morning, and as it was foggy, it hadn’t burned off when we due to leave the ship. So it was a little cooler and not knowing what the day would hold and an AJ announcement that there were possibilities of showers, I decided to not take any risks and put on my Antarctica beanie and jacket and packed my umbrella to be on the safe side. It was cold when we got off the ship.
The ship was going to be moving 3 times today, so all the timings were tight and depending on what tours you were doing differentiated where you would be getting back to the ship. So we disembarked at Vernon, and Giverny where Monet’s house is located was only a 10 minute drive from the port.
So after pulling into the car park and walking the 8 minutes to the entrance of the gardens, with the fog hanging around and starting to life, you could see why this place appealed to Monet. It was just beautiful and we weren’t even in his domain yet.
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. 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. 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. 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. Always on the look-out for rare varieties, he bought young plants at great expense. "All my money goes into my garden," he said. In 1893, ten years after his arrival at Giverny, Monet bought the piece of land neighboring his property on the other side of the railway. It was crossed by a small brook, a tributary of the Seine River. With the support of the prefecture, Monet had the first small pond dug; even though his peasant neighbors were opposed. They were afraid that his strange plants would poison the water.
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. 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.
500 000 visitors discover Monet's gardens each year during the seven months that it is open. 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. 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 and a staircase had collapsed. Three trees were even growing in the big studio. But now restored to its former glory and with his works now gracing all the walls, it was pretty cool to get a chance to look at some of the works and how 8 children lived in the house.
Monet was 86 when he passed away, so half of his biography and paintings came from Giverny and the gardens we walked around in. There is a clear line in Monet’s paintings which are also referred to before and after Giverny. We were lucky we got to see the gardens as they close next week till spring next year, and even though there weren’t a lot of flowers in bloom due to the time of year, it was still stunning and I have to say the highlight of the cruise so far.
So we returned back to the ship for lunch, which was now docked at Mantes-la-Jolie and was a 30 minute drive from the Monet gardens. I have tried to stay away from the buffet lunches when I can, as the food is so GOOD, and if I ate there every day I would be the size of a small house. The food has been pretty amazing and I had fresh prawns today, which was a nice treat.
At 1.45pm, I had an optional tour booked to the Versailles Palace. I have always wanted to do the tip to the Palace, but it has just never really panned out, so it was a nice surprise that it was an optional excursion on the cruise. It took us an hour to drive to Versailles and it was a WOW moment for me as we pulled into the parking lot at the front of the Palace. IT was massive and beautiful and with the gold leaf on the main buildings you can see why there was a French Revolution.
The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometers southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancient Régime.
Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682. By moving his court and government to Versailles, Louis XIV hoped to extract more control of the government from the nobility, and to distance himself from the population of Paris. All the power of France emanated from this center: there were government offices here, as well as the homes of thousands of courtiers, their retinues, and all the attendant functionaries of court.
During the early years of the French Revolution, preservation of the palace was largely in the hands of the citizens of Versailles. In October 1790, Louis XVI ordered the palace to be emptied of its furniture, requesting that most be sent to the Tuileries Palace. In response to the order, the mayor of Versailles and the municipal council met to draft a letter to Louis XVI in which they stated that if the furniture was removed, it would certainly precipitate economic ruin on the city (Gatin, 1908). A deputation from Versailles met with the king on 12 October after which Louis XVI, touched by the sentiments of the residents of Versailles, rescinded the order. However, eight months later, the fate of Versailles was sealed.
We got to visit the King and Queens Private apartments and the famous Hall of Mirrors. I have to say how busy the Palace was in the apartments especially. We were there at the end of October, out of season and it was bordering on the point of too many people, as we shuffled from room to room. There were 2 good things that held us in good sted. Our guide was AMAZING at moving other people on to make room for the whole group in the best spots of each room and our Vox Box’s worked a treat here. If we got separated we could still hear what was being said as we were all pushed and elbowed as we passed through the rooms. The rooms were pretty amazing to see and all restored to their former glory as well. We got a full hour going through the apartments and then given an hour to walk around the gardens. Once again coming into winter there was no flowers at all, but the layout of the gardens and the view of the palace from the outside was amazing and reminded me a little of Schonnbrunn Palace in Vienna. The day turned out to be awesome, so we were quite lucky all day and walking around the gardens of Versailles was pretty cool even with no flowers and no fountains.
So at 4.45pm we left the wonderful palace and back on the road to the ship. The River Baroness was now docked at Conflans St. Honorine which from the palace took us 40 minutes to get to. Traffic was a little bit of a nightmare, but Zollie our driver was amazing and pulled some pretty cheeky moves in our 45 seater coach. Well done Zollie. It was a very pretty drive with the colours of the trees in the yellows, oranges and reds and with the last of the sun’s rays hitting these colours was beautiful.
That was the last stop we had of the river cruise. We are now making our way back to Paris tonight with our last night on the ship tomorrow. I can’t believe the week has gone so fast. It was a quick turnaround for the Versailles group as we had a Captains Farewell Reception at 7pm with a disembarking briefing and port talk with AJ after that. Well there was a slight problem with one of the engines of the ship, so the Captain didn’t make the Captains Reception and we ended up leaving 2 hours later than scheduled, but it made no difference to us as we were due to arrive into Paris at midnight anyway, so getting in at 2am didn’t disturb anyone’s plans. We were also given a copy of the menu’s tonight that we had during the week and also a group photo of all the staff and the ship which was quite sweet.
A wonderful day, amazing and quite awesome actually. I am loving France.
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