Tour Summary:

The Monet family settled in Giverny in 1883. Then Claude Monet made a one-hectare garden full of perspectives, symmetries and colours. He married flowers according to their colours and left them to grow rather freely.

Claude Monet’s Garden today is a delight to visit throughout the period it is open to the public (April to October). Claude Monet’s Garden is one of the most popular tourist attractions in France outside of Paris.

Anyone visiting France and has the slightest interest in French impressionism or Monet’s paintings come and see the grand allée, the water lilies on the ponds he created, the Japanese footbridge, the beautiful flowers, as well as his typical Norman house, with its wonderful small collection of Japanese art. There are so many wonderful features in Claude Monet’s Garden, which does, at least in part, account for its enduring appeal.

Given that French Impressionism and Monet in particular is widely thought to be the most popular genre of art, we are all ‘familiar’ with the garden before we even get there. These different features were each created by Monet, and then repeatedly painted on canvasses that are now well known and in galleries and collections around the World. One of those features I never tire of seeing is the Japanese footbridge. Although a simple structure, it is a very striking one – flanked by willows and covered in wisteria, and there’s so much more..

Destinations: FRANCE: Paris – Giverny – Paris

Tour Commences In: Paris

Tour Concludes In: Paris

Number of Days: 1 day

Tour Style: Luxury

Accommodation: NA

Meals: Lunches; 1:

Leaders: Professional private Specialist bilingual guide

Transportation: Luxury private chauffeur driven air-conditioned vehicles

Tour Grading: MODERATE: Suitable for travellers with an average level of fitness and mobility

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Tour Highlights

Claude Monet’s Garden

The Clos Normand
The Water Garden
The Japanese Bridge
The House

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Tour Itinerary

The impressionist painter Claude Monet lived in the charming country village of Giverny for 43 years until his death. His home has been restored as a museum while keeping all the furniture and objects he lived with to guard its authenticity. Monet’s passion for gardening led to the creation of two gardens: The Clos Normand – a 1 hectare orchard in front of his house brimming with a wide variety of flowers and the Japanese Water Garden filled with weeping willows, small bridges over the pond and the world-famous water lilies. (nymphéas)

Pick up from your hotel at 8:30am by private car or luxury minibus and transfer to Giverny, painted by numerous American impressionists’ painters who went there because of Monet.

The visit starts with a guided visit of the two gardens, Clos Normand and the Japanese Water Garden which served as the inspiration and background for many of Monet’s paintings. The two parts of Monet’s Garden contrast and complement one another. Followed by a free visit of the Monet’s house and studio.

Lunch 10kms from Giverny at the 200-year-old mill - Le Moulin de Fourges.

Later return to Paris.

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.

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 rarest varieties.

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."

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.

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.

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.

The wisterias have been planted by Monet.

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 stepdaughter 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.

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.

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. The pond had to be dug again.

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.

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