Monet's Garden and Home

 

When someone with no "eye" for taking photos can get a photo like this, it says something about the way the gardens were created by Monet to achieve this effect.

Monet dammed this stream in order to create the pond that inspired much of his art work.

A bridge over the stream was being taken over by the vegetation  that had been planted around it.

Although it was late in the season to see blooms, there were still many beautiful flowers.

At the end of the tour, we entered Monet's home.  The first large room had a lot of pictures that he had painted along with this photo of him in his studio.

My appreciation for fine works of art lean more toward this beautiful wooden desk.

I take it Monet wasn't the one decorating this room.

Monet also liked fine food so he was a gourmet who required fresh ingredients.

Vernon, France

We didn't visit Vernon.  It was merely the stop to access Monet's Garden and Home

This was probably the largest truck I saw in France.  All the trucks are cabovers because the roads are skinny and maneuvering room is sparse.

Looking over the top of the Viking Fjorgyn

 

La Roche-Guyon, France

Waking up on October 5th, we could tell right away that it was a raincoat day.

The first stop was La Roche-Guyon, France.  As you can see, we were aboard the Viking Fjorgyn.

This display along the walk into the village announces to the world that this area of France is proud of being the origin of impressionism.  Painters such as Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh are from Normandy.

Another claim to fame for La Roche-Guyon is the Chateau de La Roche-Guyon.  Leaning against the limestone cliff, overlooking the loop of the Seine River since the Middle Ages, the impressive castle is a journey through architecture.  From the Medieval keep to the 18th century stables, from the the first troglodytic rooms to the "lumieres" experimental kitchen-garden, from the ceremonial drawing rooms to the Blockhouses built by Rommel, the visitor is dragged along through history.  

This was a very elaborate gate.

I originally thought these were buckeyes but it's possible they are horse chestnuts. 

This part of the Seine is known for its chalk cliffs

 

Travel Resumes

My sister and I had been traveling every other year since 2012 but the Covid-19 pandemic had us canceling a trip we had planned for September of 2021 which had already been canceled for September of 2020.  On June 10th I received an email from Travels with Alan.  Travels with Alan usually has come bargains and the Greece trip they offered for October 2021 definitely hit some places we wanted to go.  In a semi-joking manner I forwarded the email to my sister.  She emailed back with, "Let's Go!".   Well I wasn't ready for that answer but I started doing some research.  Then I remembered some friends saying they really liked Viking Cruises so I checked out Viking's website.  They had some cruises that looked interesting.  Figuring my friends might get some benefit for referring us, I contacted them.  Lo and behold, they were already booked on two cruises, one of which included Greece!  So that is how my sister and I ended up going on two cruises in October.

The first was a river cruise entitled Paris and The Heart of Normandy.  

and the second was an ocean cruise entitled Empires of the Mediterranean

A total of five countries in 19 days..... or at least that was the plan.  I flew to my sister's home for a break before we were to take off together.  

We had to start our adventure off right!

The day finally came and we headed off to the airport and boarded the plane.  Once we got on board, the plane pulled away from the jetway and stopped.  Stopped!!!  A announcement was made that the weather was bad in Chicago and we were delaying to see if it got better.  After 1/2 hour there was another announcement.  It looked like we were going to be delayed another hour so they let everyone off the plane.  We weren't in the terminal for five minutes before they announced that the flight was canceled!!!  Oh no, this wasn't looking good.  I immediately got on the phone to the Viking emergency line to see if they could do some rerouting for us while my sister got in the line to talk to the gate agent.  An hour later, just as my sister reached the desk, the Viking rep came back with a new plan.  But it wasn't all good news... no, our trip wouldn't start until the next day!  We would miss the first evening and morning on the ship and the first excursion.  We weren't happy but we headed back to my sister's for the night and the next day we took a different airline and different route to get to Paris.

Once we got to France, our veranda stateroom was all ready for us.

The heated floor in the bathroom was a very nice touch

I had never had a veranda on the cruises I had gone on in the past and it was a nice touch.

We decided that the few hours we had in Paris this day would be taken up with going up the Eiffel Tower and luckily, our ship was docked about a 15-minute walk from it.  So, carrying our raincoats, since it looked like rain, we hurried off the ship to get there.  Unfortunately, we both forgot our cameras and, despite having my phone, I had it set to save photos in .heic.  Blogger wouldn't accept that format.  A quick search on the computer and I had the directions to save as .jpg so I could get the photos downloaded to Blogger.

But the line was long and we were tired after our trans-Atlantic flight, so we decided to go up the Eiffel Tower when the cruise returned to Paris.

All aboard was at 6:40 and we started cruising the river...

and seeing the sights.

Each day a newsletter called the Viking Daily was delivered to our stateroom.  It contained a schedule for the following day, a weather forecast, information about where we were going the next day and other informative articles.