Our visit to French Impressionist Monet’s Garden wasn’t in my original plan for a month-long trip to Europe to celebrate some personal milestones. At first, I had planned on spending time just in Spain, given my birth country’s cultural affinity and my obligatory Spanish lessons during my schooling days. However, since Paris was in our flight plan, I thought of revisiting Paris for the 4th time.

The first page I opened in a Paris travel book, however, showed a photograph of Monet’s Garden. I have always been a fan of Monet and I remembered that he had made many paintings of his garden in Giverny, just an hour away by train from Paris.

As luck would have it, on 16 May my wife and I visited his garden, now run by a foundation. Even before we reached his garden, we were bursting with anticipation, as along the roadside we were seeing irises and other spring flowers growing by the roadside. Once we entered it, we knew right away that it was the jewel in the crown. During our month long journey that started in Barcelona from 20 April, we had visited 17 cities and towns and all types of gardens—from simple home gardens and patios in Cordoba to rosaleda’s or rose gardens in Madrid, Barcelona, Jerez, Granada, Seville, Ronda, Ubeda, Toledo, Malaga, Girona in Spain to Paris, Rouen and Caen in France.

So here are some of my shots. As you can see, my wife was full of enjoyment, posing for the camera. So did I, on the other side. We visited the gardens at the higher level and the water garden with the water lilies and Japanese bridge. We saw tulips, pansies, daffodils, irises, peonies, rhododendrons, geraniums, wisterias, azaleas, etc. For summer and autumn, different flowers and plants are on display. We were fortunate to be there in mid-spring to see especially the irises and tulips in full bloom. The roses and water lilies were not yet in bloom.

We had only two hours to take photos of the garden and, regretfully, we didn't have enough time to visit Monet's house. I told my wife that it means Monet wants us to come back another time. We will.

Monet's Garden is open to the public from 1 April to 1 November, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
We encourage everyone who looks at our photos to pay a visit to Monet's garden. To get there from Paris, take a train to Vernon station. From there a shuttle bus ferries visitors to Giverny where Monet's garden in located.