Day 1 – Giverny & Rouen

Finally, we arrived at CDG Airport around noon after a 5 hour delay in Dallas. GROAN, a 21 hour trip.  Through a “buy-back” program, we picked up our new Peugeot 308–AAAH, the smell of a new car–and we were off–ZOOM ZOOM–in the rain.

We were going to skip Giverny because we slept only 2 or 3 hours on the plane, but decided to soldier on.  We’re glad we did.  I was told by numerous people that Monet’s house & garden are gorgeous, but the hordes of tourists sort of ruin the ambience.  The rain in this case was a blessing because we were able to see the place without many other visitors.

WARNING AHEAD:  For all you folks in drought-ridden California who have just put in a Zero-scape garden, turn away now.  Looking at the following pictures, you might turn to stone:

If you didn’t sleep through ART 101 class in college, you should remember that Claude Monet was the painter who had the bright idea to paint outside. [WOW, what a profound idea!  I’m getting snarky here because of jet-lag.]  Before, painters were studio artists who used to sketch things outdoors and then go back to their musty studios to paint them.

His technique is known as “en plein air.”  Monet, and others like him, wanted to capture the reality of light on their subjects.  They could not record light in a pencil sketch.

We apologize for our messy coiffures, but, you know, the rain and all.

“I’m singing in the rain, singing in the rain, what a glorious feeling. . . ”

Back to old Claude. . .  Monet took a subject and painted it over and over and over and over during different parts of the day and during different times of the year in order to capture the fleeting quality of light.  [Snark alert: OCD, perhaps?] The lily pads in his garden was one of his favorite subjects.

His Japanese footpath was another one.

Flower children?

Monet liked to paint boats, too.  In fact, one of paintings depicted a boat on the water at dawn,  He called it “Impression: Sunrise.”  His group of painters became known as impressionists from that point on.

Of course, the studio painters and some critics laughed at this school of painting because Impressionists’ tableaux looked more like fuzzy rough drafts.  But who needed a realistic portrait anymore because the camera was just invented?

Painters who painted realistically became dinosaurs.  They were like typewriter vendors trying to sell to IBM.

That is when painters became experimental.

They also became aware of new schools of thought on the physics [quantum theory] of light.

They were especially fascinated by how the eye perceives light, how it fuses individual colors together to create a new color.

May is a great time to see France.  The hills are covered in mustard, the bulbs are bursting open, and the birds are a chirpin’.

We toured Monet’s cottage, too.

A cozy nook

A nest of his paintings

What a teeny bed.

Provincial colors

Who cleaned the copper?

We then drove to Rouen, where we got lost.  GPS failed us because it cannot get into the small streets of France’s old cities.  We drove in circles for almost an hour until the manager of the hotel gave us block by block instructions over the phone as we were driving.  GPS French style.  Voilà!  We found it.

This is crazy.  That shelf of old books over the bed in our chambre, well, it’s wallpaper.  Go figure.

The hotel made reservations for us at a local restaurant.  We got there at 7:45 and were the only people there . . that is until 8:00 when a steady stream of diners poured through the door.  I guess everyone in Rouen sups at 8.  We were the only English speakers there.  My 8 years of French class and 8 months of Fluenz French came in handy.

Les Six Huitres

Les Escargot aux Lardons

Les Noix  de St Jacques [I was a bit worried because noix means nuts.  I was glad that they gave me whole scallops.]

Steak, of course, for Pete.   Thank you,  Lipitor and Crestor

Happy dude, drinking Beaujolais

Bien Cordialement

P & J