Giverny

Giverny: Monet’s Garden Without the Illusions

Giverny is a 45-minute drive from Rouen, a small Norman village of around 500 people, and it would be completely unremarkable except that Claude Monet lived there from 1883 until his death in 1926. His house and two gardens - the Clos Normand flower garden and the Japanese-inspired water garden with the famous lily pond - are now open to visitors between April and October. Everything outside this five-month window is essentially closed, including most restaurants and B&Bs.

The gardens themselves

The Clos Normand is the section you walk through first: long flower beds planted in colour gradients, climbing roses on metal arches, and the pink-and-green facade of the house. Monet designed all of this himself and considered gardening as important as painting. The design is precise but not stiff - it looks slightly wild on purpose.

The water garden is through an underpass beneath the road. This is where the weeping willows, the arched Japanese bridge, and the lily-covered pond are. It is smaller than the famous paintings suggest. The pond is perhaps 30 metres long. The light in mid-morning is excellent, which is when every serious photographer turns up. Arrive at opening time (09:30) or after 16:00 to get any kind of clear shot. During July and August between 11:00 and 15:00, the queue to get onto the bridge can be 20 minutes.

Tickets cost EUR 12 for adults (2024 pricing). Book online; it sells out weeks ahead in summer. The Fondation Claude Monet website handles bookings directly.

Beyond the gardens

The Musée des Impressionnismes is a ten-minute walk from the gardens and focuses on the broader Impressionist movement, not only Monet. The permanent collection is thin, but temporary exhibitions have been worth the EUR 8 entry. If you have limited time and must choose, the gardens win.

Monet’s house itself is open as part of the gardens ticket. The yellow dining room and the blue-tiled kitchen are the highlights - genuinely personal spaces that feel less curated than expected. Prints of Japanese woodblocks cover nearly every wall in the upstairs rooms; Monet collected around 250 of them.

Eating and sleeping

The restaurants in Giverny are aimed entirely at tourists, and quality is mediocre relative to price. The Ancien Hotel Baudy on Rue Claude Monet is the exception - it served as a meeting place for American Impressionists in the 1880s and 1890s and still has the original guest register behind the bar. Lunch is around EUR 25-35 for two courses. The courtyard garden is good in fair weather.

For a better lunch, drive 7km to Vernon and eat in town. The Saturday morning market on Place du Marché has excellent Norman cheese and cider. Les Fleurs on Rue Carnot does a decent fixed menu at EUR 22.

Staying overnight in Giverny proper is expensive for what you get. Vernon has a Mercure and several cheaper options. If you want to be in the village itself, La Musardière is a converted 19th-century house with six rooms from around EUR 110 per night, which is reasonable for the location.

Getting there

Trains run from Paris Saint-Lazare to Vernon-Giverny in about 1 hour 15 minutes; tickets cost EUR 14-20 each way. From Vernon station, taxis, bikes, and a small shuttle bus (seasonal) cover the final 5km to the village. The bike option is pleasant on a dry day along the Seine. Driving from Paris takes about 90 minutes depending on traffic.

Come in May for the peonies and early irises, or September when the water lilies are still out and most of the summer crowds have gone.