Giverny: Claude Monet's house and gardens, Paris

About Giverny

Giverny is a small village in the Eure department, on the right bank of the Seine where it meets the Epte, about 80 kilometres west of Paris. Claude Monet made it famous: he spotted it from a train window, rented a house here in 1883, bought it with its land in 1890 and created the gardens he painted for over forty years.

After the painter's death his son left the estate to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The house and gardens were restored and opened to the public in 1980. Today the Fondation Claude Monet runs them, and Giverny is Normandy's second most visited site after Mont-Saint-Michel.

What to see

• The water garden — a lily pond, willows and wisteria.
• The Japanese bridge — the green bridge from Monet's paintings.
• The Clos Normand — flowerbeds and arches of climbing roses.
• Monet's house — pink walls, green shutters, a yellow dining room.
• Japanese prints — the painter's collection in the house.
• The Museum of Impressionism — exhibitions in the same village.

The water garden and lilies

The estate's most famous part is the water garden Monet created on an arm of the Epte. He dug a pond, planted it with water lilies, framed it with willows, bamboo, azaleas and wisteria, and spanned it with a green Japanese bridge. He saw coloured hybrid lilies at the 1889 World's Fair and ordered them for his pond.

Monet painted this pond hundreds of times at every hour and season, and here the Water Lilies cycle was born, now in the Musée de l'Orangerie and museums worldwide. Standing on the bridge, you recognise the paintings: the same water, the same reflected clouds, the same flowers.

The Clos Normand and the house

Before the house spreads the Clos Normand flower garden: rectangular beds with flowers grouped by colour and an avenue under iron arches covered in roses. Monet planted thousands of flowers and chose them like colours on a palette.

The painter's house is a long two-storey farmhouse with pink walls and green shutters. Inside are a bright yellow dining room, a blue kitchen with copper pans, a studio-sitting room and rooms hung with his collection of Japanese prints, arranged as Monet himself wished. His bedroom window looks over the garden.

A village of painters

From 1887 American Impressionists began arriving in Giverny, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, Frederick Frieseke and others, turning the village into an artists' colony. Their social hub was the Hôtel Baudy, still a café and restaurant with period décor.

The village has the Museum of Impressionism Giverny, with exhibitions on Impressionism and painters of the Seine valley, and an old Romanesque church of Sainte-Radegonde. Galleries, cafés and souvenir shops line Rue Claude Monet.

Tips for your trip

Allow two to three hours for the house and gardens: stroll the water garden slowly, sit by the pond and be sure to see the house. With travel it's a full day; the first morning train is best.

Before going, see the Water Lilies at the Orangerie or Monet's paintings at the Musée d'Orsay, and you'll recognise every corner at Giverny. Photos are fine in the gardens; check the rules inside the house.

The paths are narrow and get crowded at peak times, so with a pushchair come on a weekday. Lunch in a village café or at the Hôtel Baudy.

How to do it right

• Spring to autumn only.
• Tickets online.
• Early to beat crowds.
• Train from Saint-Lazare.

Questions