Finally in Giverny

I have been to France several times, but I had never made it to Giverny. Now the time has come and I was really looking forward to it. We arrived there in the morning. Just an Asian tour group ahead of us - that's okay. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the water lily pond definitely didn't look as breathtaking as in Monet's beautiful paintings. Maybe it just needed a ray of sunshine. The artist must have had a very sunny disposition to create such luminosity in his paintings. Nonetheless, we got a sense of this colorful and otherworldly place. In many corners, I could imagine Mr. Monet sitting and painting. Afterwards, we strolled through Giverny and checked out the real estate prices ... cheaper than here and such beautiful houses. That immediately brought back my dream of owning a guesthouse ... In the next life, I'll be born in France and then Micha and I will renovate an old French house. I'll have my guesthouse and Micha will have plenty to build. ;-)

The following drive north took us down lonely country roads again. We had our coffee break in the garden of a small château overlooking the Seine. We had completely overlooked the fact that this garden was private. The friendly security man escorted us out; the cake was already gone anyway. Our destination was Yport, between Fécamp and Étretat. We managed to snag the very last corner of a beautiful campsite. Micha was even willing to give up electricity for the 'sacred cow' fridge; a view like on a postcard. This is the place where we wanted to stay ... for the next 5 days; an ideal starting point for explorations.