Sunday 4th May

We had decided to go and visit the Monet Gardens at Giverney today, and had arranged to catch the 10:09 train. However, Mary and Grace went to a barbecue at Guilliums last night and didn’t get home until 7.00am. Grace was up in time but Mary had slept through her alarm, and we couldn’t get hold of Liz at all. This meant we missed the first train but undeterred we bought tickets for the next train, and nearly ended up somewhere far away because the ticket lady had heard us wrong. Then we had a hot chocolate sitting outside (it was very hot again, not so sunny but really humid), and caught the 12:00 instead. It was 40 minutes to Vernon, where we hired bikes from a jolly cafe owner, who gave them to us cheaper, and we set out on the short ride to Giverney. We got lost at first, and missed the cycle path we were meant to go on and ended up heading up a really steep rock path in a wood. At the top of the path we came to a road and headed back into Vernon to start again. I’d seen a sign for the museum earlier so we followed this, but it also didn’t seem right as it was on a main-ish road. Half way there we found the right cycle path. We had probably cycled straight past the entrance. 10 minutes later we arrived in Giverney and decided to have a spot of lunch before going to the gardens. Mary chose a B+B who did lunches. It was a beautiful place. A really old house surrounded by a beautiful garden, complete with a stream and bridges, 3 peacocks (two which were white) and two wallaby’s. Mary overheard some aussies saying ‘D’you think thats a kangaroo? No, I think its a wallaby mate’. We had a lovely lunch of homemade salads sitting at a little iron table on a gravel courtyard overlooking the stream. We could have stayed there all day. However we had come to see the gardens so headed onto the car park and chained up the bikes. The queue was ginormous for the Monet stuff so we left it for the time being so we had an ice-cream and had a look in the American Art Museum. It was actually just nice to be out of the heat and in a cool building. By the time we came out, the queue for the Monet gardens was much shorter and we went in. Its very beautiful. One side is very formal, with little paths amongst rows of flower beds. And the other is quite tropical looking, with the lily ponds, bamboo trees and japanese type bridges. It was definitely my favourite of the two. After this we headed back to Vernon and lazed on a grassy bank on the edge of the Seine. Our train wasn’t until 8.45 so we had a while. At about 7.15 we took the bikes back to the cafe and had a drink and some chips before catching the train back to Rouen. Back in Rouen we all went home to drop of our stuff and we rang Liz and we all met up by the Cathedral for a walk along the river. Its very beautiful in the dark and it was so warm still. I didn’t even need a jumper. An hour later, Liz was hungry and hadn’t eaten so we went to QUICK (like a McDonalds), which wasn’t very quick and she got some food, and Grace, Mary and I got milkshakes and we went back to my room for an hour looking at photos and chatting.