Paris Post-Trip Day 3

Day 3 - Wednesday, April 24, 2012 - Day for Laundry; Optional Trip to Giverny

Today was another beautiful day in Paris. The forecast was for sunny skies and no rain. After breakfast we packed up our dirty clothes and set off for the laundry only about ten blocks from our hotel.

The same woman that we met yesterday greeted us and helped us use the soap dispenser and the digital coin operated washers and dryers. We are now masters of French laundries!

We walked back to our room and reorganized our bags with clothes all fresh and clean for our next adventure. At noon it was time for our excursion to Giverny, the home and gardens of Claude Monet.

As we walked to the subway station we got “side-tracked” when we saw a local street market. There were fresh fruits, vegetables, even meat and cheese, along with stands and stands of olives to die for. Neighborhood people had their little baskets and produce carts and were buying fresh produce for their tables.

Knowing we could probably spend more time there we knew we were on a schedule and had to get on the undeground. We rode the Metro to St. Michel and had a kebab and fries at a Turkish café. We are getting wiser – two of them are way too much to eat so we ordered one to share.

We hustled to the France Tourisme Office and met our guide, Sylvain. He was not only our guide, but he also drove our seven passenger van. We followed the Seine out of town and then northwest for 50 miles, a little more than an hour. The van had a GPS so we could see exactly where we were going.

We reached the small village of Giverny at 2:30. Sylvain took us to the back entrance of the park so we could avoid the lines at the main gate. He told us we had 2 hours to spend so we wanted to maximize our time.

Our walk began at the Japanese water gardens. This is the time we wish we had a fragrance option on the website; the air was so perfumed! The apple & cherry trees, the azaleas, and rhododendrons were in full bloom as were the hyacinths, tulips, forget-me-nots, and daffodils.

The ponds and the formal gardens were alive with reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, purples, and blues – a rainbow of colors. Springtime is a gorgeous time to come, but those who have been to the gardens in the summer have been just as impressed.

We met Sylvain back at the van and left Giverny at 5:00. Fighting rush hour traffic in the city was not easy, but by 6:15 we made it back to the office. We thanked Sylvain and walked to the subway station.

Each train was more crowded than the next, but we managed to squeeze our way in and rode to our stop in close proximity with Parisians of all shapes and sizes. Time to look through the photos and write the journal…

At 9:00 we went out to the neighborhood grocery store and bought some fruit for our dinner and had one more look at La Tour Eiffel. When we got back we posted the journal and then packed for our train trip to Provence in the morning.

Accommodations: Hotel Mercure Montparnasse - - - Meal: B - - Rating: C

I really thought that 4th photo was a picture of a painting until I enlarged it.

Beautiful! Thank you for posting the flower pictures. It sounds as if you are having a wonderful time.

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Day 13 - Saturday, April 22, 2022 - Depart for U.S.

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