a dream come true

Today Annie, Pauline and I all made one of our long held dreams come true..... we made it to Monet's garden and Giverney. We treated ourselves with a small guided tour - where we were picked up from the apartment and transported in a Mercedes (people mover) to the lovely and picturesque town of Giverney. Along the way the guide, Yvonne, told us stories about Monet and his close friend Renoir and about the development of impressionism (which of course was born out of some political unrest and painters rebelling against the conservative art scene of the 1800's).   We learnt about Monet's failing eyesight and how he radically agreed to cataract surgery in 1922 and when recovering how upset he was when looking at his work(!)  Also we found out that he was actually not a struggling artist for most of his life - he achieved popular acclaim as a 15 yo and then after some lean years, made enough money to support himself and his (large) family as a professional painter.   We heard many times about the amazing light in Normandy and today we experienced it.  It was amazing! It was light without being super bright (which I know sounds really strange) - we were all pretty excited to see those waterlilies and that small bridge - and we were lucky as because it was during the week, it wasn't crazy with tourists.... we got opportunity to sit and look at the beautiful lake, the bridge and of course those lillies.
Later we went into the house and saw THAT chair and THOSE hay-bales (well maybe not those exact ones!) - By the way that house was colourful!  the kitchen was striking blue the dining room vibrant yellow..... lots of colours.   In the end Yvonne reminded us that Monet never really painted anything - he only painted the light!
Feeling very culturally sound ( having learnt something today) we then returned home - Yvonne kindly pointed out to us the tunnel in which Princess Diana died in - (at the request of the 4 others in the tour) on the way; we went to the cafe down the road where Pauline said au revoir to Paris over a glass of champagne!
Paris has been so wonderful, we have all had a spectacular time.  Everyone agrees that Paris is a hard place to beat - wonderfully big, somewhat friendly and truly beautiful.  Next time though, after our taste of the French countryside, everyone is voting that the next French experience needs to be in a small village somewhere....
We head to Spain at 4am tomorrow morning (yes 4am) - we all realise that our bags are getting bigger even though we haven't actually bought anything too much!