May 2025
16 May 2025
In May, Adam and I popped off for a quick visit to France via Eurostar. The theme was to visit gardens.
Our first day was spent at Versailles. I really wanted to visit Le Petit Trianon, which was given by Louis XIV to Marie Antoinette so that she could relax away from the formality of the French Court. Here she created the garden, and had a small village built. I've been rude about her in the past, about the way she imported merry peasants for her village and pretended to be a shepherdess with a little flock of shampooed sheep. But I really shouldn't, because it is utterly delightful.
The next day was a visit to Giverny and the garden of Claude Monet, a painter both Adam and I love. The garden is beautiful, though to begin with it was very crowded. The house is lovely, too, the walls covered with pictures, many of them the Japanese paintings Monet admired. Later the crowds thinned out a bit, which made it easier to appreciate the garden.
Giverny is a pretty village, though Monet tourism is rampant. There is a plain, peaceful church, with Monet's tomb in a garden area beside it.