More Paris

We had an early start today for an all day tour to Monet's Garden at Giverney and the Palace of Versailles. We were up a lot earlier than we have been getting up lately but were still astounded at the quiet and dark Paris streets. This is 7am!

Monet's garden was much larger than we thought it was going to be and although the water lilies were not in bloom you can certainly see what an inspiring place it was.

This is the view from his bedroom

Every corner was crammed with flowers at different heights and colours. It was to be inspirational all year round and it certainly was to me.






Here is his studio which is bigger than my house. It is twice the size shown in the picture and gives you an idea of the size of his Waterlilies painting (these are copies). It has so much light and space which I am sure all artists would kill for. It is now obviously a much more important souvenir shop. I only succumbed to a couple of postcards of interiors of his home which you couldn't take photos of.

Here is where we had a very pleasant lunch

Versailles was as magnificent as always but rather than show you traditional postcard shots (of course we took lots) there is something rather special on at Versaille at the moment. Jeff Koons has an exhibition of some of his work in the main apartments and outside. General concensus was negative but I quite liked them. Guides have been told that if staff hear them being negative about the exhibition they will have their access refused! This is me in front of the balloon dog in the main ballroom with my new Paris haircut!

This one is at the end of the astounding Hall of Mirrors

Through this magnificent gate is another balloon sculpture.

They are doing renovation work outside and where ever the scaffolding gets close to the windows there is super security.

In the gardens they were working on the hedges. Being quite large they have these amazing machines which are guided by electronic beams. Very interesting for when your hedges are hundreds of years old.


The end of the day is coming

PS - I have added the new Followers link at the side if you want to add your name to it. I am getting such nice comments about my travel diary so thanks to all who write.