Monet's Garden

Claude Monet's house and garden is in the village of Giverny to the north west of Paris. The garden is simply stunning, visit if you can! Claude Monet's garden at Giverny is probably the most famous garden in France. 500 000 people visit every year. Monet painted some of his most famous paintings whilst living at Giverny. These included as his water lily and Japanese bridge paintings. Monet lived in Giverny from 1883 until his death in 1926. The garden itself is in two parts with a flower garden in front of the house and the more famous water gardens were started ten years after Monet's arrival at Giverny and constructed on land bought on the other side of the road from his house. Interestingly locals were originally opposed to his plans to build water gardens, fearful that the strange plants would poison the water of the tributary feeding the ponds. The flower gardens cover about a hectare and are laid out in colour themed, borders. There are literally thousands of flowers in these gardens including masses of tulips, irises, oriental poppies and peonies - plants with wonderful colours providing an inspiration to Monet's paintings. The water gardens have a Japanese theme and there is a replica of the Japanese bridge which featured in Monet's famous paintings. As well as visiting the gardens you can visit Monet's lovely, and very colourful house. It is fairly simple in style but filled with warmth, colour and paintings.