Monet's Garden

Monet's Garden

We decided that over the three weeks we were in Paris we would do a trip out of town each week. The second week we went to Monet's Garden at Giverny. Again we went early to avoid the heat and the crowds and this worked well. We took the train from St Lazare Station to Vernon which takes about 45 minutes. Then we caught the bus to Giverny - some 7 kilometres away.

Monet moved his family to Giverny in 1883 and started developing the garden. He bought some adjoining land later and dug out the lily ponds. He painted many of his famous pictures here, many of the garden and of course the lily ponds. The gardens fell into some disrepair after Monet died in 1926. The house was bombed badly in WW2. It was inherited by the State in 1977 and restored, over the next 10 years, to it's former glory. Monet's paintings were used as a guide to how it used to be. It is now open to the public for 7 months of the year.

There were some lilies out - I think it was the start of their season. Above is the famous Japanese style bridge that Monet painted a lot. Even though it was early in the day there were still lots of people doing the same thing as us.

         It was possible to find parts to sit and watch around the ponds where it felt very peaceful.

                                  It must take a lot of maintenance to keep it at the level it is.

I was a bit disappointed it was not possible to walk along most of the smaller pathways in the large garden. I know it's for it's preservation but I would have liked a closer look.

By late morning it was getting very hot and the crowds were much denser so we left feeling that we'd been there for the best part of the day and enjoyed it a lot - especially the pond area.

A few days later we visited the Orangerie in Paris where Monet's famous water lilies paintings are. These paintings are magnificent and were really brought to life for us by having seen where they were painted so recently. They are 2 metres high and cover 91 metres end to end and are displayed in two rectangular galleries. The Orangerie was renovated in the early 2000s to allow more light and this has been a great success. There is no sky or horizon in the paintings which creates an illusion of the gardens being continuous.
Under the water lilies in the Orangerie there is a collection of paintings from Paul Guillame which is also well worth seeing. It includes paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and more and is not nearly as crowded as at the D'Orsay where most go to see Impressionist paintings.
A hint we were told is that the queue for the Orangerie is always less than at the D'Orsay. We went at lunchtime on a Saturday and were pleasantly surprised that there was no queue. You can buy a joint entry ticket for the Orangerie and the D'Orsay which means that you can enter a prepaid ticket entrance at the D'Orsay and avoid a lot of the queues there. You have to visit the D'Orsay within 4 days of buying the joint ticket. That worked well for us.

The Catacombs

The Catacombs

We wanted to see the Catacombs and decided to book a tour to avoid the queues which are usually 2-3 hours long because the people who can go in at one time are limited. That was a good decision. Our tour guide Miguel Coelho  - miglcoelho@gmail.com was excellent. He is an expert on the Catacombs, as well as the rest of Paris and explained their history and French history in a way that I've never understood before. He also speaks excellent English so could explain nuances that some guides don't have the ability to do. We did 2 more tours with Miguel on our own - one of the left bank and the other of the Louvre. His charges are very reasonable - 75 Euro for just the two of us which is about what we were paying for a group tour. We recommend him highly.

The catacombs are the underground storage of the bones of at least 6.1 million people. Parisians originally buried their dead outside of the city but with the arrival of Christianity it was deemed important to bury the dead on consecrated ground - that is around Churches and these were all within the city limits. This made for quite a crowd of graves. By the early 12th century a central mass burial ground was made for those who could not afford a church burial. So a big hole was dug and bodies thrown in until it was full when another one would be dug. I'll leave you to imagine the results of all those decaying bodies nearby with the seepage and smell resulting and of course the spread of disease. No wonder the Kings didn't want to live in Paris during this period. Plus the Paris water supply was mainly from wells so seepage into the water supply was a health issue.
Apparently the revenue from burials was one of the Churches biggest sources of revenue so they were reluctant to recommend parishioners used the new cemeteries outside the city when they were formed. Although King Louis 16th was aware of the problem and wanted to rectify it the Church thought that they would lose parishioners if they let people be buried elsewhere so the church denied that a problem existed and bodies continued to be kept in the city confines.
Bones were often removed from the holes and piled up nearby when they dried forming "charniers."

Paris is built on limestone. Most of Paris's buildings are built of this limestone which gives it it's wonderful sheen in different lights. The limestone has been quarried from under Paris - mainly on the left bank which was on the outskirts when the quarries were commenced. There are 300 kilometres of interconnected quarries under Paris. A lot of quarries but then there's a lot of buildings in Paris and some was exported as well. This means that a large part of Paris today has corridors of quarries underneath it which can cause instability and there is a danger of sink holes forming. When some sink holes formed, around 1770 and people fell in and died the locals believed that it was hell opening and the devil coming for them and there was understandably much public concern.
In 1777 a Quarries Department was formed by the Royal Council to map and assess the tunnels safety and reinforce them when needed. This process continues to this day. Apparently insurance still costs more in Paris for dwellings that have quarries underneath.
In 1786 the head of department overseeing the quarries renovations - Alexandre Lenoir recommended that bones from the city be stored in the disused limestone quarries. At first it was done secretly but the area was consecrated and then it became official and only ceased in 1860.
Bones were piled randomly at first but later stored neatly in different groups, depending on where they'd come from. They have been open for public viewing since the beginning of the 19th century.
I was ready for it to be quite a macabre experience to see all the bones and it sort of was but Miguel explained it well and the area of quarries that we visited with bones was relatively small compared to the number of disused quarries that we walked through. The feat of building the quarries in the beginning and their history is a very big story in itself. Miguel explained that by seeing the bones we were facing our own mortality in a way.

Long corridors of quarries before getting to the actual catacombs. Some of the piles behind these skulls and femurs go for several metres.

This shows a potential crack forming in the tunnel walls which has been marked and will be monitored for changes and reinforced if necessary.

Another aspect of the quarries is that there is a sub culture of people in Paris today called Cataphiles. Miguel said that they number in their thousands. They enter the quarries from manholes etc and some even live there. There is a separate police squad to catch and fine them because it is illegal but with 300 kilometres of tunnels it's a bit of a cat and mouse activity. Many come down only at weekends and hold parties. The part of the quarries open for the catacombs is a very small part of the total and cataphiles frequent the other parts. Some do graffiti paintings but the most dangerous are those that try and dig between tunnels potentially creating instability. Another side of Paris I guess.

Versailles

Bob had never been to Versailles so we needed to go. We got up early in order to be there when it opened. We went by train from St Lazare and bought our tickets on line beforehand. We got in quite quickly and were pleased to see the rooms when it was comparatively uncrowded. To say it is sumptuous is no exaggeration. Including the gardens it's is 800 hectares in size.  

Building was commenced in the 1660s by Louis X1V - the "Sun King." He drained swamps and moved forests to create it. Paris was pretty dirty and unhealthy at this stage and Louis wanted to be removed from that. He also wanted somewhere where he could keep an eye on the court and noblemen and even the gardens were designed so that there was nowhere to hide and scheme. 

Thanks Bob for taking these pictures.

The most famous room is the Hall of Mirrors, 75 metres long and lined with 17 huge mirrors so that the court could admire themselves and also to reflect the ceiling frescoes. Mirrors were staggeringly expensive then so this was a real luxury.
Versailles housed 6,000 courtiers and nearly sent France bankrupt with the money it cost.
The etiquette of court life was very formal. We saw the room where Louis X1V often ate alone with 200 people watching. He also had an audience to watch his morning routine. No wonder he had to build a second palace nearby out of pink marble - The Grand Trianon - where he could relax.
Then Louis XV built another palace -the Petit Trianon as a love nest with his mistress Madame du Barry.
Louis XV1 and Marie Antoinette married in the Chapel Royal in 1770 when they were both teenagers. It was here that they were marched on by French mobs, mainly led by women, in 1789 at the start of the French revolution.

I know many of you have been here and drawn your own conclusions about it's sumptuousness. I find it fascinating that people could dream and bring into existence almost anything they could think of. It was important for France to display it's wealth as a world power too I believe. However many French people suffered so a few could live like this and that was it's ultimate and understandable downfall.
It has been a museum since the 19th century but has been damaged by war and neglect. It has had a place in world affairs over the years and used for the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 after WW1 and the Treaty of Versailles was signed there. It is still used for State occasions.

After going through the palace when it was relatively uncrowded we went back to the gift shop and thought we could exit from there. No such luck. We had to go through the rooms again - along with all these people. It was OK for us as we had seen it but we were pleased that this was not our only view. 

Bob was not the only photographer but his garb was different.

We walked around the gardens which were much less crowded and very pleasant. We visited the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon and then found a nice little bistro away from the crowd in the town of Versailles to have a meal before returning to Paris. We're glad we went but don't have to do it again soon.
I was amused by this dog grooming place near the Palace. Taking advantage of their situation I suppose. Hope the animals appreciate it!

Bridge with Locks.

We were not familiar with the seemingly relatively new world wide trend for lovers to put their names on a padlock, tie it to a bridge and throw the key in the water as a symbol of never ending love.
Paris has it's lovers bridge and we spent a lovely evening here watching the action.

Apparently the bridge has got so heavy with all the padlocks they have to remove them all every year for safety reasons.

There are lots of tourist boats going up and down the Seine - some very crowded. You can see Ile de la Cite - one of the Seine's two natural islands and the home of Notre Dame coming into view.

Lots of lovers....

                                                      And others doing their own thing.

Even a photo shoot.

We were alerted by the crowd on this boat applauding that something was happening. I'm pretty sure that this was a proposal and I'm guessing the woman thought it was just a romantic dinner for two on the Seine.

As the boat went under lovers bridge someone above threw red roses down. The couple were protected by an umbrella - a pretty well thought out operation.

She looks surprised but says yes to the cheers of the crowd. Can you think of any other possibilities to explain this - I can't!

Then an enterprising person on the bridge picks up the roses that fell over the railing but didn't make it to the boat. Don't know if he was the one who threw them initially.

I couldn't work out what was happening with these guys below with something large and silver but hey presto it's a tuba and soon a band.

            Walking back along the river the old stalls selling mainly souvenirs are still there.

                                                    And to top it all off a beautiful sunset.