This post is all about the wonderful day trip you can take from Paris to Giverny!
It’s a great destination for a half-day trip during your Paris vacation. Your reward will be visiting the impressionist painter Claude Monet’s house and garden.
Monet’s Clos Normand is really a beautiful place, especially in the spring and summertime when the famous gardens are in full bloom. It’s a wonderful experience you should not miss out on!
If you are visiting Paris and want a change of pace and scenery, this is definitely a small village worth visiting!
From Paris to Giverny
Who should visit Giverny?
Monet’s house and garden are a must-see for any nature and garden lover. It is a beautiful place that is also very inspiring.
If you have already visited and loved the Museum of Impressionism in Paris and Monet’s paintings, you must visit Giverny!
It is a perfect destination if you love art and the impressionist movement. It’s also a great destination for families as the house is furnished and not too vast. It will make it much more relatable for the kids to get an impression of how life was during Monet’s time.
On top of that, you have the gardens that are an excellent place to enjoy the beauty of nature, take some pictures, and have a great afternoon with your loved ones.
The Giverny day trip is perfect for visitors who have limited time or for those who want to see the highlights of this beautiful French town.
Monet’s house and Monet’s garden
Claude Monet’s house and gardens are located in Giverny, France. He lived there from 1883 to 1926, making it his house for 40 years. It was his last place of residence and the house where he spent most of his time.
The house is very well preserved, making it a perfect representation of the traditional interior design at the time. The ground floor was the living areas with the kitchen, living room, dining room, and his painting atelier. On the first floor, you have private apartments for the family.
He lived there with his second wife, her six children, and his two children. So quite a full house. On top of that, he had many prestigious guests visit him in Giverny. Guests included famous impressionist painters such as Cezanne or in-vogue French writers such as Malraux.
You can just imagine them all at the dining table located on the ground floor with the gorgeous view of the garden and water lily pond. How could you not get inspired to paint?
If you are familiar with Monet’s work, you know that some of his most famous paintings are inspired by his garden and the beautiful water lilies from it. Monet was a painter but not only that. He also became the main gardener of the Clos Normand by designing the gardens himself and caring for all his beautiful and different flowers.
The water garden was and is the main attraction. Its creation was inspired by one of Monet’s Japanese prints. It inspired him so much that he built a Japanese bridge over the water lily pond in his garden.
The upkeep of the house and garden are in the hands of the “fondation Claude Monet”. The purpose of the foundation is to preserve, maintain and promote Monet’s legacy around the world as well as to promote other artists who share his vision of art as an integral part of everyday life.
If you have some additional free time and want to experience even more beautiful paintings, you can go and visit the museum of impressionism in Giverny. It’s a 5 minutes walk from Monet’s house.
Who was Monet?
You might have heard of Claude Monet and you’ll be able to learn so much more during your visit to his home in Giverny. In the meantime, let me give you a first insight into who he was!
He was the French painter who is considered the founding father of the impressionist movement. This movement is based on the practice of painting nature and landscapes as they are perceived by the painter. He loved to paint outdoors.
Fun fact, the term ‘impressionism” comes from one of his paintings “Impression, soleil levant” dated 1874.
Monet did his painting classes in Paris, where he met other famous names such as Pissaro and Renoir.
Monet moved around quite a bit between Paris and Normandy (and even London and the Netherlands for a period of time). A crucial meeting for his painting was with Eugène Boudin. They met, as Monet was continuing his art classes in le Havre around 1858. He was the one that taught Monet about outdoor painting techniques.
I recently had the opportunity to visit another small town in Normandy: Honfleur! This is the hometown of Eugène Boudin. He even has his own dedicated museum! It’s the perfect destination if you are looking for a weekend getaway.
If you’re not able to make the day trip to Giverny but still want to enjoy some of Claude Money’s paintings, you should go and visit the Orsay museum and the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.
The first one has a dedicated floor for the great impressionist painters. Currently, it’s on the top floor of the museum, under the roof. On top of the great art, you’ll have a great view of Paris through the glass clock. Orsay is now a museum but it was once a train station connecting cities like Orléans to Paris.
The Orsay museum is only a short walk away from the Eiffel Tower. I’m sure you already have it on your list of places to visit whilst in Paris!
The Marmottan Monet museum is a dedicated place for impressionist paintings. This museum holds one of the largest collections of Monet paintings, so it could be a great visit either before or after your trip to Giverny. The museum showcases also other impressionist artists such as Delacroix, Boudin, Manet, Pissarro, and Gauguin.
Organizing a day trip to Giverny
Here are a few elements to help you get that Giverny day trip organized:
How to get there?
The easiest way to get to Giverny is by car. You can easily find a car renting agency in Paris. Once you are in your car, it will take around 1 hour and a half to arrive at your destination. If you are not sure how to book your train tickets, you can read this post to help you!
If driving is not an option for you and you prefer to use public transportation, you can take the train from Paris Gare Saint-Lazare to Vernon-Giverny. The train journey will take around 1 hour and 40 minutes. You’ll arrive in the village next to Giverny. You’ll still have to take a shuttle bus to take you from the Vernon train station to Giverny village, where Monet’s house is located.
You can take advantage of passing through Vernon to visit the city. You have a lovely old mill over the Seine river, with its so very typical architecture of timber-framed houses. The old city is very easy to walk through and very quaint.
How to book your ticket?
You have several options to purchase admission tickets:
- directly at the Monet house
With this option, tickets are a smidge less expensive than the e-ticket (currently 11€ versus 11,50€) and you might have to queue when purchasing your ticket.
If you are wanting to have a private tour and a tour guide for your visit, the foundation provides a list of their independent partner tour guides. You’ll have to contact the tour guides yourself. This might not be the most practical and you might prefer a more packaged option. If this is your case, read on!
- e-tickets
You have several options for e-tickets online. The easiest one is on the website of the Monet foundation directly. You’ll have the possibility to buy adult and/or children’s admission tickets. If you are a wider group (more than 20 people), you’ll have to contact the Monet house directly to organize a private tour.
The Monet house does not offer the audio guide option. However, you can find sites that offer audio guides for your visit and a tour guide to accompany you during your visit. They offer a package that includes cut-through access, entrance tickets to Monet’s garden and house, and a private guided tour of the house. These tours are for approx. 10 people.
Even though they do represent an additional cost, it is recommended that you take a private guide because they will provide valuable information about Monet’s life and what happened during his time in Giverny.
When should you go?
The best time to go is definitely during the spring or summer time to enjoy the gardens that were such an intrinsic part of Monet’s life and work.
I loved my visit to Giverny. It was such a magical place and a wonderful escape outside of Paris. Life seemed so much calmer in Giverny surrounded by the beautiful gardens of Claude Monet. So if you are fed up with the hectic city life of Paris, you can definitely check out Giverny. It will be the perfect breath of fresh air that will make your French trip that much greater!
I visited it once before when I was a child, and I had a great memory of it even before returning as an adult. As a souvenir, I brought back a plaster replica of the front of the house that I then had to paint with watercolors. It was a great continuation of my visit that I kept in my room at my parent’s house for many years.
All this to say that Giverny is very kid friendly and can be a great introduction to art. The purpose of the Monet foundation is to keep Monet’s spirit alive and you can really feel it when visiting this place.
This post was all about your half-day tour of Monet’s home and beautiful gardens in Giverny!
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