Monet's Gardens and House

The reason to come to Giverny. Claude Monet's house and gardens are maintained by the Fondation Claude Monet exactly as he left them — the pink and green house, the blue kitchen, the yellow dining room, the walls covered with Japanese woodblock prints. But the house is really a prelude to what lies outside.

The Clos Normand is the formal garden in front of the house — a riot of climbing roses, irises, and nasturtiums in season, with colour combinations Monet calculated as carefully as the compositions in his paintings. A tunnel under the road leads to the water garden: the lily pond, the Japanese bridge hung with wisteria, and the weeping willows that became among the most painted subjects in Western art history. Walking through it, you see the paintings become three-dimensional.

Open April to November. Arrive when it opens (9:30am) to avoid the coach tour crowds that build up by midmorning. The gardens are extraordinary in May and June when the irises and roses are at their peak.

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A story
Monet spent more time on his gardens than on his painting in later life. He wrote to a friend: "My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece." When he began losing his sight to cataracts in his late sixties, he kept painting — the late water lily series, executed when he could barely see, were described by one critic as the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism. He completed the large panels for the Orangerie in Paris the year he died, 1926.

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