Monet's Garden in Giverny and Château La Roche-Guyon

In the morning, we drove to Giverny, where the painter Claude Monet moved in 1883.

He created a garden here that he immortalized in his works.

The garden was beautifully laid out and there was a variety of tulips in all kinds and colors.

Unfortunately, there were also many people crowding the narrow paths.

Monet's former residence can also be visited.

For that, we also had to queue in a long line before we could move through the rooms.

In a second part of the garden, which was very large, we came to a pond that Monet had created.

Here, there was also the bridge over the water, known from his water lily paintings.

After the visit to the garden and a short stop at the café, we strolled a bit through the village.

We also visited the Romanesque church dating from the 11th century.

In the cemetery, there is also the grave of the Monet family.

The drive continued to La Roche-Guyon, where we initially had difficulty finding a parking space because the large parking lot was being renovated.
We took a 20-kilometer detour and finally found a small parking space on the street, which was directly along our planned hike.

From there, we first went to the keep of the former castle.

The path was a bit adventurous and steep. We probably did not take the official route, as we ended up climbing through underbrush and a hole in the fence.

For that, we had now deviated to the keep, which we could only view from the outside because an iron gate blocked the entrance. We would find out later why.
After we had continued into the village (this time over the correct, slightly longer route), we visited the Château.

It was built below the medieval fortress whose remains we had already seen, and was repeatedly expanded and remodeled.

Originally, most of the castle was built invisibly into the rock, with only the keep visible.

Today, there is still a tunnel system in the rock as well as chapels carved into the rock.

We toured the castle, of which not much furniture remains.

In an old pigeon house from the 17th century, there are 1500 holes that were carved into the limestone cliffs. The pigeons' droppings were used as fertilizer in the fruit and vegetable garden.

The path continued to rise, with a sign pointing to the keep.

We were surprised that we arrived at the top of the hill after a significant number of steps - only this time inside the tower on the other side of the iron gate…

From up here, there was a beautiful view over the Seine and the castle garden.

It was also used as a viewing tower around the 18th century, although we couldn't imagine how the duchess climbed the stairs in her dresses to admire her landscape garden from above.

In the casemates, which were used by the Germans in 1944 because Rommel had appointed the castle as his headquarters, we saw a replica of the “Chronoscaphe.” This is the time machine that Edgar P. Jacobs drew in his comic “The Devilish Trap” from 1962. The comic is set in the castle, so there was a small exhibition about it.

We walked further through the garden to the Seine.

Returning through the village, we then went back up the hill.

We took a small hike past rapeseed fields and through the woods before returning to our car.

On the way back, we made a short stop at the outlet center near Giverny and did a bit of shopping before the stores closed.