Europe Adventure: Day Seventeen- Giverny

On Thursday, April 21st we got ready as soon as we woke up. It was such a cozy room and I had to grab a picture of my mom reading by the window...

Some more pictures of the view..

As soon as we were both ready we went down to the dining room for breakfast.

Breakfast was baguettes, Pain au chocolat, croissants, juice, and homemade jams. 

It was delicious.

There was a couple from England staying there as well and they were in the dining room with us. 

Amaury hung out with us as well and the five of us chatted for a long time. 

They were all very friendly and I quite enjoyed it.. even being an introvert. 

Amaury told us to wait to go to Monet's garden until around 11 because it was when all the tour buses would go to lunch. 

That surprised me as we try to usually get everywhere right at opening. But we knew he would know what he was talking about so we took our time. 

 

Amaury and my mom

We eventually went up to our room and finished getting our things ready.

Then we came down to check out. 

I grabbed some more pictures of the dining room now that it was cleaned up and empty. 

We said goodbye to our host and jumped in the car. 

As we were driving down the road I had to stop to take a picture of this house through their gates. 

Isn't it amazing? 

It reminded me of the book Madeline. 

Giverny was about 15-20 minutes away so I put my mom in charge of taking the occasional phone picture out the car window again. 

It was so pretty. 

I stopped to grab a picture of this house because we saw this color of blue shutters all over the place. 

Now when I see that on a house I think of the french countryside. 

Pretty soon we were in Giverny. 

I parked in the first parking lot I found which happened to be free. 

We began walking to Claude Monet's home. 

First we went into the museum that wasn't part of his home and so we didn't stay long but we did see some beautiful flowers. 

We then went back down the road to the real Monet museum and house. 

When we first walked in we saw the couple from England that was staying at Les Hautes Sources and said hello. 

Then we began to roam the gardens near the house.

Claude Monet's house was very long. 

It was very cool to be at the home of someone that I named my child after!

We went in to explore his house. 

What a view from your bedroom!

After exploring the house it was time to see all of the gardens. 

As we were walking along we saw this little girl sitting on the ground drawing the flowers. 

I loved this because I knew it was exactly what Madeline would have been doing. 

I had to get a Jennifer Rain picture for Maddy. 

(If you have forgotten, Madeline gave me this Shopkin to take with me on the trip so I took pictures of it all over to send to her.)

We had such a lovely time walking through the gardens. 

They were absolutely beautiful. 

As we were leaving I took a picture of this painting of Monet in front of his house. 

We stopped at a cafe on the way back to our car to get some lunch. 

It was a cute little cafe and even had a cafe cat. 

We had Quiche and Macarons. Very good.

Then we got back in our car and drove toward Versailles where we would be dropping off the car. 

I tried to avoid the tolls and yet we kept hitting them along the way. 

Most of the time it was just a euro or two and then suddenly we hit one that was 5 euros. 

My mom and I got a good laugh imagining what the cars around us thought when they heard me exclaim, louder than I meant to, "5.20! Son of a!". Don't worry- I said it to a machine. Not a person. 

It was kind of culture shock going from a few days in the beautiful, relaxing, quiet French countryside to the crowded, loud, craziness of a city. 

Versailles was kind of scary to drive in as there were cars everywhere. 

Then we saw the Enterprise that I needed to return the car to and it was right on a busy road with absolutely no parking. 

I didn't know what to do. 

So I just pulled over as close to the curb as I could and mom ran to the door to ask where we should go. No one answered. 

I put on the hazards and we tried to call them. No answer. 

We were kind of freaking out. 

But finally we saw a guy arrive and go in. My mom went in to talk to him. He told us to leave the car where it was. So we unloaded our things into the little store. 

He went out and moved the car up ONTO the sidewalk. 

He called us a taxi to take us to our hotel in Paris. 

Originally we were planning on taking a train into the city from Versailles but once there we decided we didn't want to wander down the streets with all of our luggage and that the taxi fare would be worth it to take us right to the front door of our hotel. 

It was pricey but in the end we both felt it was so worth it. (About 25.00 each)

As we drove into Paris it did not look at all like I expected it to. 

There was graffiti everywhere and it was so dirty. 

That surprised me but it didn't make me any less excited to be there. 

I took some shots out of the taxi window as we made our way to our hotel.

 

It was pretty exciting when we saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time!

The driver took us right up to the front door of our hotel, The Pullman Paris Tour Eiffel. 

The doorman took our things and we went in to check in. 

Originally we had planned on getting a small apartment but that didn't work out. 

So then I saw this hotel. It looked fancy, had good reviews and was only a couple of blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. I was able to get it on a deal where we had a twin room with a view of the Eiffel Tower for only a little over $100 each per night. 

That was so worth it!

We were anxious to see what our view would look like... if it really would have a good view or not. 

It did. 

When we walked into our room we immediately knew we had made the right decision. It was amazing. 

The tower was RIGHT THERE!

So exciting. 

We settled into our room and then I had to pull out my zoom lens and get some shots of the tower!

Looking the other direction...

We were pretty tired and didn't really feel like going out. 

Our original plan was to go to the Museum d'Orsay but we just really wanted to settle in and get oriented first. Unfortunately we never made it there but maybe someday!

Instead we ordered some room service. And this was so much fun. 

They brought it on a really cool rolling table/ warming tray. 

So we sat down in front of the window and ate our delicious dinner while looking at the Eiffel Tower. 

We ordered Poulet club sandwiches with fries and salad. 

It was so nice and so delicious. 

We had some of the clotted cream fudge I bought at Westminster Abbey for dessert.

The tower started sparkling at about 8. Then it did it every hour. 

It was so cool. 

Sorry the video is sideways...

This view never got old. 

We were so glad we picked this hotel!

My purchases of the day: 

Some small paintings to frame. 

A bigger print of one of my favorite Monet paintings to frame for my library. 

I got the drawing book for Madeline. 

Amazing Day! 

Up next: Our first day in Paris.