Adventures in the French Countryside

It’s not difficult to travel to Giverny, but it took me years before I finally made it. After I graduated from college I lived in France for a year teaching English in a little town an hour south of Paris. I always thought about catching a train north, switching stations in Paris and taking a two-hour train ride through the countryside to visit Monet’s home. But for some reason, even knowing what the journey would entail, I never went.

Then, two summers ago, I impulsively decided to travel back to France. And this time, I told myself firmly, I wouldn’t skip Giverny. I woke up early one morning and took a metro from my small hotel in the Paris banlieue to Saint-Lazare, a sprawling, multi-level train station. I’ve taken many trains through France but some of the most beautiful countryside you’ll see is directly northwest of Paris near the Seine. The hills seem to go on forever, and after spending time in the city a quiet peace washes over you; everyone on the train seems to let out one big sigh of relief.

The first thing you notice about Giverny isn’t the flowers, but the perfume; It’s fresh earth, lavender, lilies and lilac, plus fresh water and moss mixed together. It feels a little like stepping into a dream, until you look around and see people snapping pictures and talking about how Monet painted among the vines.

I wandered around for a while, discovering his paintings in real life and also trying to imagine what it was like for Monet to live there. Even though the gardens are often overrun and crowded with tourists, there seems to be enough space for everyone to have their own, private moment with the flowers. It’s inviting without being overpowering--the perfect place to paint and unwind.

Then, I started to get hungry so I wandered out of the gardens into the small town. There were places to buy sandwiches or sit down for a more expensive meal, and tourists were cloistered around them in packs. But I looked up and saw a road that led away from the village, and I decided that it would be more worth exploring than sitting at the restaurant.

I originally planned to walk until I reached the village limits, but I noticed that the higher I went, the more I could see out over the valley. There were bugs chirping and the weeds scratched at my ankles but I kept climbing, moving farther up the hill so I see over the houses and the backyards. When I finally reached the top, the only noise I could hear were crickets, birds, and faint rustling in the grass.